Belligerence
by Fuel 262
Summary: Matrix, AndrAIa and Frisket arrive in a system where everything is under control, including the resident virus. Set within the second arc of Season Three.
1. 0001 - The Welcoming Committee

Author's Note: I do not own the rights to ReBoot (or anything else I have parodied/stolen) and have no legal or moral right to create this story. I have written it purely for entertainment purposes.

**Chapter One: The Welcoming Committee**

A game cube flickered slightly, indicating that it was nearly at an end. It had landed in a perfectly square system with square edges bordered with triangular green hills that completely cut the inhabitants off from the rest of the net. It looked orderly and prosperous, as if isolation had not had any detrimental effect on the environment.

GAME OVER.

The game cube lifted into the firmament and left behind Matrix, AndrAIa and Frisket with a group of four binomes, two of each numeral. They huddled together as Matrix towered over them in a foul temper.

'What did you think you were doing?' He shouted, not expecting an answer. 'We were inside that planet and you tried to blow it up! It's amazing you haven't crashed your system if that's how you play games! Just look at the state of… oh...' Realising that the system was not the degraded shell he was expecting, Matrix paused and looked at AndrAIa, who was equally as unimpressed by the binomes.

'It was our first time…' a one binome confessed, his knees knocking together.

'And it was nearly your last!' Matrix continued ranting. 'Do yourselves a favour, and never do anything that basic again!' He turned on his heel and stood next to AndrAIa as she looked around at the wide, empty street which had been cordoned off by police vehicles parked across the ends of side streets, blocking the way in or out. This sensible precaution was something that the travellers had come to expect in more organised systems.

'It looks pretty good here,' she remarked. 'It doesn't seem like there's going to be much for us to do here while we wait for the next game cube to drop.'

Frisket looked startled and attempted to telepathically communicate a warning about speaking too soon.

'Don't bet on it,' Matrix remarked. 'The perimeter of this system is guarded by a security boundary with a level of encryption Mouse would be proud of and there's a virus here somewhere but Glitch can't get a lock.' He stood up and held the damaged key tool in front of him as he wandered around trying to get a better signal. 'I think it's in that building over there!' he said, pointing towards an immaculately clean, slimline slab of a building. It was at least seven storeys high, three times as long and perilously thin.

'Is that their Principle Office?' AndrAIa wondered out loud.

Matrix shook his head. 'No, that's over there,' and pointed in the opposite direction to a massive cubic monolith. It too was pristine white, but with a gold band around the midpoint. Above it, four enormous VidWindows in the Pinnacle Formation streamed a public service video. AndrAIa paused to watch the end.

'Remember!' A voice boomed. 'You are the Elite! You have Purpose! Together we will Succeed!'

'What was that all about?' she asked, puzzled.

Matrix pointed at the sky. 'I think we're about to find out.'

Two sprites in full riot gear jumped out of a van and herded the binomes into the back with cattle prods while four security cars descended and formed a square around Matrix, AndrAIa and Frisket, blocking them in. A pale yellow male sprite in a floor-length black trench coat got out and addressed the newcomers.

'If you wouldn't mind coming with us, we've got some questions for you.'

Matrix was not impressed. 'Yeah? Well I do mind. Let me through.' He pushed the challenger aside then shoved the parked vehicle out of the way to make a space for himself, AndrAIa and Frisket to walk free from the corral of cars. Before he had taken a step, the yellow sprite drew a blaster out of a belt holster and fired it at squarely at Matrix's back with no warning. Blue energy crackled around the renegade and he collapsed to the ground which shook when he landed.

'What was that for?' AndrAIa cried out.

'Resisting arrest.' The police officer said. 'So I suggest you and the dog come quietly.'

AndrAIa smirked as she unfolded her trident. 'Us? Come quietly? I don't think so.'

'Have it your way,' the officer sighed and raised his blaster.

AndrAIa ducked as he fired and a second officer took the hit, collapsing with a strangled yelp into a heap of black fabric. The game sprite fired a handful of fingernails at the officer, hitting him in the neck. AndrAIa watched as he staggered and slumped to the ground.

'Dodge this.' a female voice spoke from very close proximity to AndrAIa's right ear. She turned and found herself looking directly down the barrel of a blaster for a fraction of a moment before Frisket unceremoniously flattened the officer who dropped her weapon, which went skidding across the spotlessly clean pavement. She tried to get up to retrieve it but Frisket stomped on her shoulder and growled like a medium sized tank. Despite the din, AndrAIa's superb hearing picked up the sound of someone priming a weapon in the fourth car, which no-one had yet got out of. She saw that the blacked-out driver's window was open a crack.

The game sprite raised her trident to eye level and took aim at the officer in the car. 'I wouldn't do that if I were you.'

A crackling beam of blue energy spewed forth from the car. AndrAIa bisected it with the point of her trident, sending half of it back into the car at her assailant and the other half scored a direct hit on the officer on the floor, narrowly missing Frisket who leaped out of the way.

Silence.

AndrAIa knelt on the floor next to Matrix as he regained consciousness.

'What happened?' he asked, rubbing his head. 'Not another golf ball?'

AndrAIa shook her head. 'You were shot in the back with one of their stun guns.'

'Shot in the back?' Matrix repeated incredulously. 'Where are they now?'

'Having a rest.' the game sprite grinned.

'All of them? Good job Andi.' he grinned back.

A fifth car, a large black convertible, stopped near the four cars already there and an official-looking bright green sprite wearing a neat black suit got out, his eyes obscured by a pair of opaque sunglasses. This sprite clearly ranked quite highly in the hierarchy of the system. He fidgeted with an earpiece in his right ear while he surveyed the carnage and curled his top lip a little.

'Well,' he addressed the newcomers. 'I see you have made short work of our welcoming committee.'

Matrix regained his feet. 'They weren't very welcoming.'

'If it was up to me, I would have deleted you on the spot.' he said coldly. 'This system is completely isolated from the Net and since we took the serial bus offline, utterly impenetrable to invaders – or so we thought.'

'We're not invading,' AndrAIa reassured him. 'We're only passing through. As soon as the next game cube drops, we'll be out of here.'

The sprite clasped his hands in front of himself and shrugged his shoulders a little. 'I am sorry to say that is extremely unlikely to happen. Nobody has ever left this system, so I have been told to help you find a way to integrate here and stay out of trouble.'

Matrix was not impressed and demanded to see the CommandCom. The neat sprite forced a smile.

'I am the CommandCom of this system. I am known as Agent C.'

'We seem to be drawing a lot of attention,' AndrAIa pointed out.

There was a school nearby and about two dozen prettily coloured children crowded near the fence that bordered the playground, eager to catch a glimpse of the newcomers. 'That's a lot of little sprites,' she remarked. 'Are the sprites who live here are very… enthusiastic about procreating?'

'They are indeed,' the CommandCom admitted proudly. 'The Doctor actively encourages the right sprites to become parents.'

'How many children have you got?' AndrAIa asked casually.

'None.' Agent C replied flatly. An awkward pause followed. 'I'll take you to the Principle Office.' The sprite offered, indicating his car. Frisket jumped in the front seat and refused to budge. Matrix joined AndrAIa in the back and they set off towards the immense cube in the centre of the system.

'What's that building over there?' Matrix asked, pointing to the white slab where the Glitch had detected a virus.

'That's the hospital,' Agent C pointed out. 'Sprites go there to get better.'

Matrix felt patronized. He was beginning to form a deep dislike of his host.

…

Agent C's office was large, airy and very square. Two of the four walls were mostly windows with a small collection of cacti on the sills. Their size afforded an impressive view of the system while a third wall was filled with VidWindows that switched between the video feeds of dozens, if not hundreds of CCTV cameras that streamed footage of what could feasibly have been the entire system. Frisket lay on the floor, watching them intently, wagging his tail at the absurd enthusiasm the residents had for assault courses and boxing gyms. AndrAIa sat on a white cubic stool, the other side of the CommandCom's desk, where he scrolled through an organizer that bore a striking resemblance to Dot Matrix's organizer. Matrix paced slowly and aimlessly, trying not to think of his sister.

'You will be pleased to know that all four members of the security team that you took out have all recovered and are keen to learn from their… experience.' Agent C said, finally looking up. He put the organizer down and addressed the game sprite. 'Would you and your husband be willing to share your skills? I am sure you both have extensive experience in the area of unscheduled close combat.'

'I… um… we… er...' AndrAIa stuttered, slightly caught off guard by the assumption that the two of them were officially married.

'Unscheduled close combat? You mean I look like I'm about to start a fight.' Matrix muttered, immediately jumping to conclusions.

'And AndrAIa will finish it.' Agent C smiled.

'What's in it for us?' the renegade asked, his interest piqued.

'You contribute to, and become part of, the elite society that is being built up here.'

Matrix snorted. 'I think we've already said we're not sticking around.'

Agent C probably narrowed his eyes – it was hard to tell behind the dark glasses. 'You do not control when the next game cube will arrive but I can very easily control your entry into it.' He finished with a display of teeth that could have been mistaken for a smile.

Matrix leaned on the CommandCom's desk and tried to outstare him. The desk cracked a little and emitted a tiny plume of sawdust from one of the brackets holding the legs on. 'If you control that so well, how come those binomes ended up in the game? They had no idea what they were doing!'

'There is an ongoing situation with the binomes in this system which you need not concern yourself with.' Agent C said dismissively. 'However, you may be able to assist my team of elite sprites who are working on a way to schedule the games.'

'But games come from the User and can't be controlled,' AndrAIa pointed out. 'All you could do is work out when they will arrive, so you can have a bit more warning.'

Agent C looked sceptically at Matrix. AndrAIa pressed the point. 'We implemented an early warning system in our home system.' This convinced the and he picked up his organizer again.

'That's settled then,' he declared, tapping at the screen. 'Starting tomorrow, we have unscheduled close combat classes led by Ms. AndrAIa the warrior while Mr Matrix the guardian hacker is going to build us an early warning system for the games.'

Frisket wrenched his attention from the screens long enough to look questioningly at Matrix. Even though he was a dog, he knew that his master's skills in this area were almost non-existent.

'I'm not a guardian.' Matrix retorted. He did not deny being a hacker.

'Oh, okay,' Agent C looked slightly surprised and continued his tapping. 'Do you have any contact at all with other guardians?'

'If I did, do you think we would be randomly hopping between games trying to get home?'

'Fair point.'

The door opened and Agent C invited two of the sprites from the security team entered to escort the visitors to their new living quarters.

As soon as they were gone, Agent C sat back behind his desk and opened a VidWindow.

'Doctor? We have the newcomers right where you wanted them.'

A triumphant grin spread across his face as he was commended for his good work.


	2. 0010 - Second Class Citizens

**Chapter Two: Second Class Citizens**

The comfortably furnished apartment that Matrix and AndrAIa had been allocated was very pleasant, with a private balcony that overlooked the hospital. Unable to sleep, Matrix got out of bed and stood in the night air, scanning for the virus that had pinged up on Glitch earlier. There was no sign of it. He drummed his fingers pensively on the handrail, glanced back into the bedroom where AndrAIa had turned over and was now taking up the entire king size bed and decided to go on a tour of the system. The renegade launched his bulk over the railing, landed on his new zip-board and glided into the night.

Frisket watched his master until he turned a corner and disappeared. The dumpster dog nosed the sliding door shut and returned to the bedroom, curling up at the bottom of the bed.

…

The streets were dark, deserted and spotlessly clean. Matrix spent the rest of the night skimming down alleyways, studying Glitch for a sign of the virus. There were none. A light shone out of a side street, drawing the sprite's attention and he turned the corner to find a brightly lit drinking establishment called the Foo Bar. Hoping to find out a bit more about this city, Matrix folded his zip-board and walked in.

Silence erupted in the bar, which was unsurprising given that there were only three people in the whole bar and one of them was asleep. Apart from the hapless individuals in the game, they were the first three binomes that Matrix had seen since arriving in the system.

'What do you want?' The barmaid asked. She was a buxom one binome, clad in a leopard print dress and sporting a voluminous blonde perm. The only customer at the bar was a tangerine coloured male one wearing an ill-fitting suit and a hairdo so bad it looked like a wig. A zero binome snored in a corner booth next to a table littered with empty beer glasses and one nearly full one.

'What are you doing here?' the suited binome challenged. 'You don't belong here.'

'I know,' Matrix agreed, lowering himself onto a bar stool. 'I want to be on my way as soon as the next game cube drops.'

'That's not going to happen!' the suited binome shouted. 'You Elites are going to build a wall and keep them out!'

'I'm not an Elite,' Matrix said. 'I'm just a normal sprite.'

The barmaid wiped a tea towel over a grimy patch on the bar. 'That's enough to make you an Elite.'

'Where does that leave you guys?' Matrix asked, still unsettled by the brusque treatment of the binomes that had joined them in the game cube.

'They told us the Elite were going to protect us, but instead they keep us binomes out of the way and expect us to do their dirty work for them,' the suited binome grumbled.

'But why? You're not second-class citizens.'

'We are here,' he replied. 'Doctor's orders.'

'Doctor's orders?'

The besuited binome placed his empty milk glass back on the bar and the barmaid filled it up again. 'The Doctor spends all their time in the hospital making better sprites.'

'When I spoke to your CommandCom, he told me that they made sprites better in the hospital.' Matrix said. 'That's the same thing, right?'

'The CommandCom is nothing more than The Doctor's puppet,' he replied.

'Is this Doctor a virus then?' Matrix asked bluntly.

The binome narrowed his eye. 'What makes you think that?'

'Taking over systems is what viruses do,' the renegade explained. 'I've seen enough of them in my time.'

'Does this system look like a virus has taken over?'

'Not exactly,' Matrix admitted. 'But the way you guys are treated and from what the CommandCom was saying, I do think something strange is going on here.'

The binome looked steadily at Matrix, maintaining eye contact as he took a drink from his glass. 'You've been spending too much time playing games and not enough time in the real world. You've got to wake up and smell the java.'

Matrix bristled. 'I don't have to take that from you.'

'Gentlemen, please,' the barmaid warned. 'I think it's time for you to go.'

The one binome drained his glass and walked out into the brightening dawn without looking back. The snoring binome woke up, took another sip from his nearly full glass of dark brown liquid and approached Matrix.

'We're trusting you Elites to take back control,' he stated, prodding Matrix in the leg.

'Take back control from who?' Matrix asked.

'The Net!' the binome replied.

'But...' Matrix began, but the binome didn't wait for a reply and simply walked out.

'You had better go too.' the barmaid advised the sprite.

'Nice speaking to you, I guess.' Matrix shrugged.

…

Back at their apartment, Matrix found AndrAIa sitting in the kitchen-diner reading from an organizer while munching through a fruit-topped bowl of porridge. She had downloaded a new outfit and was now wearing a set of pale aqua hospital scrubs with black clogs and had tied her turquoise hair up in an elaborate braid fastened with her starfish ornament.

'Did you find the virus?' AndrAIa asked, knowing exactly what her partner would have been up to.

'Not this time,' he said, scanning the fridge for something he wanted for breakfast. He settled on chocolate milk. 'I'll try again after work.'

'Try not to let it bother you,' the game sprite said. 'The way the signal keeps disappearing could mean it's a benign virus.'

Matrix raised an eyebrow incredulously. 'We both know there's more chance of you riding sidesaddle on a unicorn than finding one of those.'

AndrAIa laughed at the thought.

'What's with the new kit?' Matrix asked, changing the subject.

'I'm working at the hospital and they sent me this to wear,' she informed him. 'I feel like they're trying to make me one of them.'

'Don't you think it's strange you're teaching a combat class in a hospital?'

'Maybe it's a branch of physiotherapy?'

Matrix was unconvinced. 'Andi, I've had an idea. Could you could take Glitch and track down the virus in the hospital?' He asked. 'I was speaking to some binomes earlier and they told me about someone called The Doctor, who I think might be a virus, but like I said, I couldn't get a lock. You might have a better chance if you're in the same building.'

AndrAIa was slightly taken aback as Matrix handed over the crumpled key tool. 'Will Glitch listen to me?' she asked.

'Try it.' Matrix offered.

'Glitch – virus scan.' AndrAIa commanded. Glitch spluttered and displayed a red dot very close to their current position.

Something bumped against the front door. AndrAIa attached Glitch to her belt and pulled her scrub vest over it. Matrix opened the door, Gun drawn and poised to delete whoever was outside, but the corridor was empty.

'That's very odd.' AndrAIa remarked.

'This whole system is odd.' Matrix agreed. 'Let's find out how deep this rabbit hole goes.'

They kissed briefly and went their separate ways.

…

As instructed, AndrAIa arrived in the waiting room of the hospital, where she met the team of four sprites that she had single handedly handed their asciis to as soon as she had arrived in the system the previous morning alongside a dozen more sprites in matching black jumpsuits with "JRT" emblazoned on them.

'What are you doing here?' she asked, concerned. 'I hope I didn't hurt you too badly.'

'We're not hurt,' the chief assured her.

'So why are you at the hospital?'

'To get better.' the security chief reiterated slowly.

The penny dropped.

'I understand now,' AndrAIa said. 'You mean "get better" as in "improve", don't you?'

'Of course it does,' the chief stated, as if there could never have been any confusion. 'The CommandCom told us you were going to take a masterclass today, so are you going to help us get better at unscheduled close combat, or do you have an alternative definition for that too?'

AndrAIa bristled. 'I brought my trident.'

'You'll like our facilities then,' the chief said. 'Follow me.'

AndrAIa was escorted to a sports hall on the third floor and left to set it up however she saw fit. The gymnasium smelled of fresh paint, new plaster and floor polish as if it had just been refurbished. Opening one storage cupboard, she found a stack of crash mats and benches with hooks on the ends surrounded with boxes full of plastic cones, small bean bags and tennis balls. She opened the second cupboard and found this one more useful, stocked with kettlebells, slam balls, free weights, sandbags and two large truck tyres. The third cupboard resembled a garden shed that doubled as a medieval armoury for a zombie apocalypse, filled with vicious spiky metal things for making holes. AndrAIa took stock of the shining rows of pikes, maces, pitchforks and axes, noticing that one of the smaller axes was missing. She realised that her lesson plan was probably going to need revising.

AndrAIa set to work putting together eight activity stations, one for each pair of sprites anticipated to attend the class, with suggestions for how the articles could be utilised for attack or defence. Exactly on cue, the double doors to the hall opened and the attendees of the class filed in neatly, standing to attention against the wall as they awaited instructions.

…

In the Principal Office, Matrix sat at the head of a gleaming white oval table, surrounded by the a crack team of hacker sprites who eagerly hung on to his every word as they sought to uncover the secret to controlling when games entered the system. Unfortunately, they did not like the words that Matrix was using, no matter how many times he repeated them.

'The games come from the User and we cannot control the User's actions.' He explained again, knowing he was running out of permutations of that sentence.

'What about intercepting the game before it breaches the firmament?' a candyfloss pink female sprite asked. 'We could hold it until we were ready.'

This sounded like an excellent idea, but Matrix did not want to lose his perceived advantage just yet. 'What's your name?' he asked.

'I'm Tweet, Mr Matrix.' she replied.

'Tweet?' He repeated incredulously. She nodded. Matrix sighed. 'The trouble with that is that game cubes carry an enormous amount of energy and that would have to go somewhere if you intercepted it.'

'But we're the Elite!' Tweet insisted. 'We can do anything!'

Matrix groaned and bashed his head against the desk.

The enthusiastic sprite stood up and started drawing on a VidWindow with her finger. 'Agent C told us that you knew of a way to detect games before they arrive!' she announced. 'We could detect that energy build-up and use it as an input to an early warning system.'

Matrix looked up. This was the first shred of initiative anyone had shown all morning. 'That is exactly the sort of thing you need to do.'

'Where do we start?'

By opening the window so I can jump out of it, Matrix thought. He made sure not to say that out loud. 'I'm sure that an advanced system like this has got lots of… um… sensors and things,' he suggested. 'Why don't you look at the readings picked up when the last game cube dropped?'

'Great idea!' the pink sprite grinned enthusiastically. 'We'll get onto that right away!'

Matrix smiled weakly and hoped AndrAIa had been more successful than him.

...

AndrAIa leaned on her trident and surveyed the carnage around her. She had tried to impart her knowledge of unscheduled close combat, but the group had only been interested in bashing each other over the head. After a while, the game sprite decided to just let them get on with it. Taken aback by their lack of concern for injuries caused or sustained, AndrAIa wondered just how much better they now felt.

'Are you going to see the doctor now?' she asked the chief as he was helped to a wheel chair clutching a bag of frozen peas to his right knee, which already swollen to twice the size of its counterpart.

'Of course not.' He snapped back. 'You don't expect the doctor to do repairs, do you?'

The game sprite resisted the urge to stab him in the neck with a fingernail.

'What does he do, then?' she asked calmly.

The chief frowned. 'He makes better sprites.' He offered no further explanation and was whisked away by a porter. Soon after his departure, a team of binomes laden with paint, wall filler and a floor sander arrived in the sports hall to repair the damage, refusing all offers of help from the game sprite.

Finding herself alone, AndrAIa decided to start tracking down the elusive virus that had pinged intermittently on Glitch. Dressed in scrubs and with a mandate from the CommandCom, nobody challenged the game sprite as she walked purposefully along the corridors glancing repeatedly at the report folder in her hand. Glitch had been hidden in the folder all day, AndrAIa not wanting to push her luck by wandering around brandishing a guardian's key tool. She rode a steel utility lift to the top floor, following a conduit that thrummed with a vast amount of energy hidden within its gleaming white exterior. When she got to her destination, AndrAIa casually greeted a one binome who was diligently polishing the floor on his hands and knees. The binome yelped in terror and backed into a corner while apologizing profusely.

Matrix was right about this system being odd.

AndrAIa risked a peek at Glitch.

There was a red dot on the screen and it was very close to her current position.

Feeling a frisson of apprehension, AndrAIa looked up and down the corridor. There was only one door nearby and it had a very helpful shiny brass plaque fixed to it.

**Room 1337**

**Future Guardian Laboratory**

**Doctor's Office**

There was a small reception window next to the door. AndrAIa tapped on the glass and a bored looking burgundy sprite slid the window open and peered over her half-moon glasses.

AndrAIa smiled hopefully. 'Would I be able to see the doctor, please.'

The receptionist tapped at her keyboard. 'What time is your appointment?'

'I don't...' the game sprite began, but the receptionist cut her off.

'Then you can't.' She stated bluntly. 'You need to have an appointment to see the doctor.'

Feeling patronized, AndrAIa forced another smile. 'Could I make an appointment?'

The receptionist sighed wearily. 'You can't just see the doctor because you want to. You have to have a reason. And it has to be a good reason.'

The doctor's office door popped open and a pair of sprites walked out, grinning hugely and cradling a newborn baby between them. A third sprite wearing a lab coat, high heeled boots and with long navy hair that nearly reached her waist stepped out after them. The father paused to shake the sprite warmly by the hand.

'Thank you so much for this, doctor,' he said, still grinning. 'You know we would never have had this baby without you.'

'I'm sure you will bring your child up to be a credit to society,' the doctor replied, patting the father on the shoulder and waving him off down the corridor towards the lift. The sprite turned to go back into the office, but saw AndrAIa and froze.

'Oh. It's you.'

A mix of recognition and confusion filled AndrAIa's mind. In contrast to her initial assumption of gender, the sprite was male, with a neat navy goatee beard, kind brown eyes and blue skin exactly the same colour as Bob's. On the left lapel of his buttoned up lab coat was the unmistakeable black and gold icon of a guardian.

'You're AndrAIa, aren't you?' the doctor asked. 'You arrived yesterday in that game cube with your husband.'

'Er, yes,' AndrAIa confirmed, still not comfortable with the assumption of marriage. 'How did you know?'

'The let me know you were working here today, but I didn't think you would be so keen to start a family.'

AndrAIa boggled. 'I… We… Er….'

'Don't worry about it – it's absolutely fine.' the doctor reassured her. 'Because it's you, I'll see you both out-of-hours.' He looked to his receptionist and asked her to make an appointment.

The receptionist sighed again and handed AndrAIa an appointment card.

'Well, we'll see you again this evening, Doctor Fred.' AndrAIa nodded, still unsure exactly what to make of the situation.

'Maybe your husband can help the Doctor work out what's got into the binomes,' the receptionist chipped in.

'So Matrix has managed to get himself a reputation as a binome whisper?

'No – virus hunter.'

Fred glanced sideways at his receptionist. 'Someone is spreading rumours that the binomes have been infected by a virus, but there's no truth in it. I've checked.'

AndrAIa looked suspicious. Fred held up a finger and asked the game sprite to wait for a moment while he ducked into his office, returning quickly with a small white box that he pressed into AndrAIa's hand? 'What's this?' she asked, opening one end and peering inside.

'It's a portable storage device I've been working on,' the doctor said. 'The instructions are inside.'

'What does it store?' AndrAIa asked, not anticipating that she would like the answer.

'Memories and knowledge,' Fred replied consiprationally, before explaining the device's function while gesticulating with his hands. 'Some couples with more, let's say, active lifestyles, prefer it if we accelerate the first few cycles of growth but then we do need to make up for that by copying memories from the parents into their child.'

AndrAIa looked at the appointment card and the boxed device. 'You've given Matrix and I a lot to talk about this evening before we come back here.'

'I'm looking forward to meeting you both.' Fred smiled and reached out to pat AndrAIa on the shoulder as she left, but she sidestepped the gesture leaving the doctor holding his hand awkwardly in the air. He settled for a wave, which the game sprite returned before the lift doors closed.

Out of sight, AndrAIa ran another virus scan on Glitch. Nothing showed up initially, but then a red dot flashed twice in Doctor Fred's office and disappeared again. There was definitely something going on.


	3. 0011 - The Doctor

**Chapter Three: The Doctor**

That evening as the light outside dimmed, preparing the system for routine updates and maintenance, Matrix and AndrAIa sat in near-silence and shared a takeaway. They were surrounded by shiny white cabinets in a pristine kitchen, but neither of them felt brave enough to attempt to cook anything in it. They had been provided with a box of food in their fully-equipped apartment, but AndrAIa had only got as far as putting a bag of potatoes on the worktop before Matrix lost his nerve and opened a VidWindow to order something instead. There would be plenty of time for them to learn to cook.

'It seems so strange having a quiet space to ourselves.' Matrix remarked, negotiating sauce coated noodles around his fork.

'This is what it will be like when we get back to Mainframe,' AndrAIa said as casually as she possibly could. 'It would be nice to be able to have a couple of little sprites running around.'

Matrix put his fork down on the table trying not to splatter sauce all over the polished fake wood veneer. 'Why do you keep doing this to yourself, Andi?' he asked, reaching for her hand. 'You know we can't have children.'

'What if there was a way we could?' AndrAIa said, keeping her voice as level as she could manage while not letting her other half get a word in edgeways. 'At the hospital today I met the doctor you were talking about this morning. He's a specialist in this area and… well… he's a guardian.'

Matrix's eyes widened. 'A guardian? Did you ask him about Bob?'

'No – but he did look a bit like him.'

The renegade tutted and picked up his fork again. 'You're always the one telling me off about jumping to conclusions about sprites that remind me of Bob.' He shovelled a forkful of noodles into his mouth and haphazardly tried to poke the bits that had not made it in first time around between his lips without stabbing himself in the face. He need not have bothered.

'We've got an appointment this evening.'

Matrix choked on the noodles, stabbed himself in the face and sprayed the table with sauce. 'You could have told me!'

'I just did.' AndrAIa stated calmly, wiping her partner's dinner off herself with a napkin.

'I can't believe you're thinking of doing this,' Matrix exclaimed, barely keeping a lid on his frustration. 'For us to have a baby while we're travelling through the games would be a completely random thing to do. We know more than anyone how dangerous the games are – do you want a child of ours to look like this?' Matrix pointed at his scarred visage and AndrAIa pressed her knuckles against her lips. Matrix continued arguing. 'No way would I want to put another small sprite through what you went through when they rebuilt your legs.'

'That was when we were young and inexperienced,' AndrAIa replied, shredding tiny bits off the corner of the napkin she still clutched. 'We would be able to teach them and protect them until we got back to Mainframe.'Matrix looked like he was about to say something so AndrAIa cut him off. 'Imagine how happy Dot would be to find that she's an auntie.'

'Happier that seeing her only brother come back from nullification?' Matrix asked, 'Wouldn't it be enough that I'd conquered the games and made it back home?' He leaned on the table and sighed. 'Aren't I enough for you?'

Matrix looked at his lover with such pleading desperation that she almost gave in. 'You're more than enough for me,' she reassured him. 'But you're not my child – it's a completely different sort of love.'

Matrix's face hardened. 'So now we get to the point. This is all about you and what you want. You want to be a mother and hang the consequences.'

AndrAIa stared back, tight lipped. He was absolutely right and utterly hypocritical. She nodded a little to loosen up the tightness in her neck before speaking again. 'Is that so wrong?'

'It is when you would be nursing a tiny baby while fighting in the games.'

'It doesn't have to be a baby,' AndrAIa said. 'Doctor Fred deploys children too – we could do that rather than have a baby.'

This confused Matrix. 'Do you mean adoption?'

'No,' AndrAIa replied. 'The first few cycles of growth are accelerated and we can download memories to fill in the gaps. We could download all our gaming skills and then our little one would be ready as soon as the next game cube lands to take us out of this place.'

'We worked hard to get those skills,' Matrix pointed out, sounding more petulant than he would have liked.

'All the more reason to pass them on,' AndrAIa smiled. She could sense that Matrix was about to capitulate.

'Where will they sleep?' he asked. 'We've only got one bedroom set up.'

'Go and have a look.'

Matrix opened the door of the second bedroom and snapped the light on. The room had been decorated to exactly replicate his old bedroom back in Mainframe, complete with family portrait hanging on the wall and ragged teddy bear with a missing eye sitting on the pillow. He was sure he had hidden that from AndrAIa, but evidently he had failed. 'I really would rather we waited until we made it back to Mainframe.'

'This is the only way we will be able to have a family,' AndrAIa pointed out. 'Because I don't have a constructor...'

Matrix took a gentle hold of AndrAIa's shoulders and moved her closer. 'We both know the timing isn't brilliant, but I can see just how much this means to you. Let's go to the hospital and see what that doctor can do for us.'

'I love you, Sparky.'

'I love you too,' he smiled. Having a child was never something he had particularly wanted to do, but AndrAIa did and that was good enough for him. Through the balcony doors, Matrix could see the massive bulk of the hospital where his beloved AndrAIa's dream was about to come true and he remembered something.

'Did you get any more viral readings from Glitch while you were in work today?' he asked.

'No, not today.' AndrAIa lied.

...

The receptionist had long since finished for the day, leaving Doctor Fred to open his own office door. He greeted the Mainframers like old friends and ushered them into his room, reaching up to pat Matrix on the shoulder. There was a large height disparity, despite the blue sprite's chunky heels.

Fred's room was sparsely furnished, two prim white leather sofas ran parallel to each other, flanking a glass topped coffee table with a nearly empty desk and large swivel chair in front of a floor-to-ceiling window. The right hand wall had a door that led into another room and the remainder was half filled with hundreds of thank you cards, every one carefully timestamped and aligned with its neighbour, fourteen rows deep and more than sixty on each row. The opposite wall bore a large picture of the Super Computer that looked exactly like the one that had previously hung in Bob's apartment in Mainframe. Matrix stared at it and a shuttlecraft flew across the image of the sky. He blinked hard.

'Good, isn't it?' Fred smiled, turning around in his seat on the sofa opposite where the prospective parents sat. 'Why settle for a static image when you can go dynamic? Do you recognize it?'

'I know it's the Super Computer,' Matrix said. 'Is that where you're from?'

'I spent a long, happy time there teaching at the Guardian Academy,' Fred explained. 'Now about...'

'Did you ever meet a guardian called Bob?' Matrix interrupted. AndrAIa suppressed a chuckle.

'As in, guardian 452 Bob?'

Matrix nodded.

'Yes I do! He's my cousin!' Fred exclaimed, then backtracked while counting generations on his fingers. 'Second cousin… Twice removed… On my stepfather's side of the family… Why do you ask?'

Matrix shifted in his seat and delivered a potted recap to the guardian. 'Bob was the guardian of my home system, Mainframe. He downloaded the cadet protocols to me just before he got fired into the Web by a virus that crushed his Key Tool after they teamed up to fight off an invasion.. I was just a little kid at the time.'

At the mention of Mainframe, the doctor's eyes widened and he looked nervously towards the door to the treatment room. Matrix followed his gaze and raised an eyebrow in suspicion. Fred picked up a handheld VidWindow from the cushion next to him and carried on briskly. 'Then you lost a game and have been wandering ever since.' Fred summarized. 'Agent C filled me in.' The doctor leaned forward towards his patients. 'I really can't blame either of you for wanting to settle down after everything you've been through.'

'We're not looking to settle here,' AndrAIa said. 'We want to go home to Mainframe.'

Fred put the console back down and looked disappointed. 'I'm afraid that part of the deal of accepting my help is for you to contribute to our society. Unless you agree to that, we can't continue. Do you have any suggestions?'

AndrAIa looked crestfallen. Matrix had an idea.

'We will tell you everything we know about games, would that be enough?'

'We already know quite a lot about games,' Fred explained. 'I have even played a few myself!' he added with a chuckle.

Matrix did not find it funny. 'Why weren't you in that game yesterday? Shouldn't you have been defending your system, or did something stop you? Something like, I dunno, a virus maybe?'

'No, it wasn't a virus,' he replied. 'A group of binomes really wanted to get into a game cube to prove they were just as good as the trained teams of sprites that fight the games. We take games seriously here and you two know more than anyone that games are not to be trifled with.'

'Neither are viruses,' Matrix pointed out. 'My Key Tool has picked up a virus, so I know there's one here and I don't intend to leave this system without deleting it.'

Fred leaned back into the sofa cushions. 'Not all viruses are out to pillage and destroy,' he said. 'But it seems to me that you are. When I took the assertion to defend the citizens of this system, that meant all of them, even the virus.'

Matrix looked disgusted. 'I've heard enough,' he sneered, standing to leave. 'Come on Andi, we're going.'

AndrAIa was astonished. 'You're going to let a virus come between us?'

Fred prodded the screen of his console. 'Do what you want, doesn't bother me.' He did not look up from the device, instead letting the implication hang heavily in the air. 'You should also ask yourself, what would Bob do?' Matrix took the bait, glowered at the doctor and sat down again.

'Would Bob hold someone's undeployed children to ransom?' Matrix asked. Fred knew he was beaten.

'Touché,' he smiled wryly. 'For the sake of Bob, I'll make an exception for you with regards to the contribution, although it's always good to know more about games. We could do with some knowledge about the Web too, it you know anything useful.' Catching Matrix's malevolent stare, Fred broke off. 'I digress, would you like a boy or a girl?'

'A b-' Matrix began.

'A girl.' AndrAIa butted in. Matrix glared at her.

Fred looked up from his screen. 'You could have twins if you like, a boy and a girl.'

Matrix sneered. 'What do you think this is, a fanfic?'

The doctor shrugged. 'Suit yourselves. How old would you like your daughter to start?'

'Old enough to look after herself.' the renegade stated. Now it was AndrAIa's turn to glare. 'What?' He questioned. 'It's what we decided.'

Fred looked up expectantly. 'So you used the portable storage device? How did you find it?'

Matrix placed the box on the table in front of him. 'It's hard trying to make yourself think of just the good and useful things when you've been living like we have.'

Fred waved his hand dismissively. 'Don't worry too much about that because we can filter the worst parts out – don't want to give the sprite unnecessary nightmares, do we?' The doctor tapped the screen of his console a few more times and looked up triumphantly. 'All done – If you could just hand over your icons, then I can get the process started.'

'What for?' Matrix growled. 'I'm not letting my icon out of my sight.'

'That's absolutely fine, you should always be careful with your icon.' Fred reassured him. 'I need to get a copy of the skills that makes you both unique so your daughter will be a bespoke blend of the both of you, but backed up with your experience.' He produced a black and white icon from a desk drawer and copied code onto it from each of the sprite's icons in turn. 'In a way, this is a much better way for people like you to build a family.'

'Nice sales pitch.' Matrix said flatly, glancing sideways at AndrAIa, who was not looking at him.

'Can't we be there for the delivery?' AndrAIa asked. 'It's really important to us to be there right from the very beginning.'

'It's a delicate process,' Fred explained. 'Tiny actions can have far-reaching consequences, so we need to be as calm as possible.' He smiled stiffly and quickly left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

'I wonder what he will do in there?' AndrAIa pondered.

'Whatever it is, he doesn't want anyone getting to it, that door is armoured.' Matrix suggested. Unable to sit still, he got to his feet and began pacing the room.

'Will you settle down, Sparky? AndrAIa asked, feeling her own anxiety rise.

'I can't help being nervous,' Matrix replied. 'I'm about to become a father!'

'I can't quite believe it either,' AndrAIa said, getting to her feet to embrace her partner. 'I know we didn't plan things this way, but sometimes you just have to go for it.'

'I suppose we do, if it's something you really want,' the renegade agreed, gently squeezing AndrAIa's shoulders before getting distracted again and wandering off.

The wall behind the door was completely covered in certificates and accolades which closer inspection revealed that many of them had been signed by Turbo. There were so many that it had been necessary to fix one to the ceiling. Matrix wandered over to the nearly empty desk and picked up a cricket ball from it's display stand and turned it over in his massive hands where he saw that someone had been picking at the seams and polishing it with sandpaper at some point in the past. He replaced the ball and picked up the only other item on the desk – a framed clip of Doctor Fred being presented an award by Turbo and shaking his hand enthusiastically. Matrix looked closely at the other figures in the picture and gasped in recognition.

'I know these people,' Matrix said.

'Who are they?' AndrAIa asked, looking at the screenshot her partner held in his hand. 'I recognise Turbo and Doctor Fred, but I don't know the other two. Are they related?'

'Ideal and Zenna Diode – they're sisters.' Matrix explained. 'They visited Mainframe a long time ago, while I was still 01. They were on the run from the virus that killed their father, even though he was a Guardian.'

'That's awful,' AndrAIa murmured. 'Why didn't they stay in Mainframe?'

'Bob sent them to the Super Computer so Ideal could complete her training at the Academy.'

'Do you know what the other one was going to do?'

'As little as possible, I hope,' Matrix said quietly. 'Zenna is a virus.'

AndrAIa looked shocked and baffled. 'Bob sent a virus to the Super Computer? That… doesn't seem right, even for Bob.'

'Zenna claimed to be benign and he made her a Protected Member first,' Matrix explained. 'Sort of a mutual good behaviour bond. She won't take anything over and they won't delete her.'

'Sounds delightful,' AndrAIa muttered, studying the screenshot. 'No wonder she looks to unhappy.'

The letters on the banner in the background of the screenshot were out of focus and all she could make out was the word "guardian". To her surprise, Zenna suddenly became aware of her observer and moved away from the banner, allowing the full message to be read as all the letters popped into focus.

Future Guardian Laboratory Initiative Awards

'Future Guardian Laboratory?' AndrAIa asked. 'I wonder what that means.'

'Oh no,' Matrix groaned. 'No, no, no.'

'What the matter?'

'I've just figured it out. Zenna grew a new arm for her sister, so it's only a step up to growing whole sprites...'

AndrAIa held up her hands. 'Wait a nano – you think that Fred has got a virus locked up in that room and he's using her as a surrogate mother to a child that it going to walk through the door calling you Daddy?'

'That's what I'm afraid of.' Matrix admitted, scratching his beard nervously as he unhooked his key tool again. 'Glitch – virus scan.'

A single red dot blinked nearby.

Matrix gulped. 'Glitch – narrow scan area.'

The virus was in the next room. Each and every one of the button nosed babies on the Thank You cards on the wall glared at the Mainframers mockingly as Matrix and AndrAIa realised that they had just handed their memories and codebases to a virus.

'What does that mean for… for our...' AndrAIa began, too upset to get the words out.

'We've got two choices,' Matrix stated. 'We can either walk out of here and leave the viral spawn behind… Or we can take our daughter home and raise her as our own.'

AndrAIa opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Matrix put the screenshot face down on the desk and sighed deeply.

'I grew up fatherless and I always swore I wouldn't do it to another sprite. I stand by that promise. She didn't ask to be deployed, so we're not going to make her feel like an outcast for the way she was born.'

Before AndrAIa could reply, the door to the side room opened and a small green sprite burst out, grinning at Matrix and AndrAIa. 'Hi Mum!' Then she broke into a run and launched herself at her father's chest.

'Daddy!'

...

Author's Note: If you would like to find out what happened when Ideal and Zenna Diode visited Mainframe, check out my other fic, 'Viral Child'! Don't worry if you don't want to, though, I've tried to keep this fic self-contained.


	4. 0100 - The Super Computer

**Chapter Four: The Super Computer**

The Guardian Academy was everything a cadet could hope for and Ideal Diode took to it like a plug and play device agent. She threw herself into her studies to the exclusion of all else, including her younger sister Zenna, the benign virus. The sisters had been given a room to share in the full-board accommodation reserved for orphaned sprites and cadets with dependants, having fulfilled both sets of criteria. Meals were provided three times a day in the ground floor refectory for all residents, an arrangement that soon proved to be a constant source of distress for the younger of the two.

It had started small. A sidelong look from one of Ideal's classmates. A mother ushering her children aside and explaining in hushed tones what Zenna was. Things escalated slowly, with deliberately smaller portions being allocated and her tray of food being "accidentally" knocked out of her hands to rapturous applause. After these incidents, a replacement meal was never forthcoming and complaints only returned derision. One fateful dinnertime, Zenna had waited until there were few other customers left in the refectory, parents having taken the children off to early bedtimes and cadets dispersed to write essays that would be of little practical use once they graduated. The virus picked up a tray, collected a set of cutlery and surveyed the counter, where she could see that a half a tureen of stew, glistening with oil was all that remained. It looked revolting, but she had not managed to eat anything since lunch the previous day and was famished. The two catering staff watched the lilac figure approach, the tall male nudged his shorter counterpart in the ribs and smirked.

'Could I have the stew, please?' Zenna asked.

The tall male behind the counter picked up the stainless steel lid, clanged it down over the food and held it there. 'You're too late,' he said mockingly. 'Dinner-time's over.'

Zenna calmly looked over her shoulder. 'That's not what the clock on the wall says.'

'That clock is slow, everyone knows that.'

Zenna could feel the fury rising from the pit of her empty stomach and she swallowed hard, determined not to give the bully the satisfaction of seeing her lose her temper. 'This morning you told me it was fast and refused to give me any breakfast, so how can it be running fast now?'

'You can't trust a falseticker,' he replied, leaning over the counter and pushing his turquoise face into Zenna's pale lilac face. He was so close their noses almost touched and she could see where the vectors converged in the pupils of his eyes. 'But what would a virus know about trust, anyway?' he spat.

This proved to be the final straw for Zenna. The virus let out a guttural howl of rage, leapt over the counter and stabbed him with a butter knife.

...

Early the next morning, Ideal was called to a meeting in the office of her tutor, Herb, a senior guardian with sap-green skin and moss-brown hair who looked completely at home surrounded by the profusion of plants that filled his office. Spider plants dangled over the edge of shelves, a tall rubber plant stood in a polished hammered brass pot behind the door and the windowsill was home to a colony of cacti, one of which had flowered. Utterly exhausted, Ideal stared at the spiral mass of bright pink petals, each one perfectly shaped, positioned neatly against its neighbour and no bigger than a fingernail. Somewhere, deep within a bromeliad flower filled with water, a tiny frog croaked. Ideal wondered if she was hearing things after staying up alone all night putting together a defence for her sister, who had been unceremoniously dragged to the quarantine cells and file-locked before anyone had thought to contact the cadet.

The meeting had been called by the head of the cadet division of the Guardian Malpractice Committee, a tall, skinny woman called Eldra. She wore half-moon glasses on her thin, orange nose and wore her purple hair pulled up into a severe bun on top of her head and secured with several pins. She looked like the sort of person who found great pleasure in picking cat hairs off other people's clothes. Her slate grey pinstripe skirt suit was immaculately presented, as if neither crumbs nor cat hairs dared to settle on its surface.

Herb sat behind his cluttered desk and scrolled through a VidWindow detailing Ideal's academic achievements. 'Looking at your grades, you're on track to become a very accomplished guardian, but you need to understand that you have to actually follow the rules that you've learned.'

Eldra fixed her eyes directly on Ideal, who noticed that the right one was red and its counterpart on the left was green. 'The codes of conduct apply as soon as you accept the protocols. Failure to adhere to them will result in your dismissal and erasure.' It was a well-known threat that was rarely carried out, but Ideal did not want to risk being made an example of.

Ideal straightened up in her chair before addressing the senior sprite with her well-rehearsed explanation of events. 'Ms Eldra, I believe that Zenna was unreasonably provoked by the canteen staff who had been denying her food on a regular basis.'

Eldra repositioned her glasses further down her nose. 'Do you not think that you should have taken responsibility for you sister's wellbeing and ensured that her basic needs were being met?'

'She told me that she didn't mind eating alone,' Ideal replied.

'You should not have let her,' Eldra insisted. 'She is a Protected Member, but you are her Designated Guardian. You should not need me to tell you what that entails, given your grades on that assignment.'

Ideal looked at the floor and nodded. Zenna had written that particular essay for her, but she was not about to admit to that. Herb put his VidWindow down.

'We know that you and your sister had a difficult home life,' the tutor explained. 'The union of a guardian and a virus is always doomed to fail and I can only say how sorry I am that your family broke down the way it did.'

'Would you mind explaining what happened, Cadet Diode?' Eldra asked.

Ideal had relayed the tale so many times that she was beyond censoring it. 'My mother bit my father's head off. The only witness was Zenna and she claims to have been unable to save him, but she managed to take his Key Tool and leave the system for a neighbouring city. I followed her and brought her to the Guardian Academy with me.'

Eldra removed her glasses and leaned forward slightly. 'If you knew the virus was capable of that, why have you not been paying much closer attention to her actions? I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of keeping viruses under control if you insist on not deleting them.' The officer sat back, put her glasses back on briskly and muttered something about Guardian 452 that Ideal did not quite catch.

'I will keep a close watch on her from now on,' Ideal promised.

Eldra pressed her lips together. 'That assertion is not good enough.'

The cadet's ice blue eyes widened and she shed some of her measured calmness. 'What do you mean? If you give me another chance...'

Herb held up his hand, indicating that Ideal should stop talking. 'Do you remember the essay you wrote on viral regeneration, where you used your sister as a case study?'

Ideal nodded. She had won the semester award for best original research paper on its merits.

'One of the researchers in the postgraduate department was particularly impressed by it and has subsequently expressed an interest in working with your sister.' Eldra explained in her habitually wordy fashion. 'We have decided that Zenna's interesting talent for restoration and her normally benign disposition make her a suitable candidate for the role, which we anticipate will commence immediately.' She fixed the cadet with a look that almost dared her to object. When no argument was forthcoming, all trace of Ideal's stand-offish stoicism having been stripped during the tense meeting, the officer finished with a thinly veiled threat. 'Your sister has violated the terms of her Protected Member status, for which the ultimate penalty is deletion while you are likely to be found guilty of gross negligence if you try and take this to a tribunal.'

Feeling cornered, Ideal looked to her tutor who placed a contract on the desk in front of her. Two of the three signatures were already in place.

'Your signature file goes in the "Former Keeper" box,' he instructed her, not unkindly.

Ideal pressed both of her thumbs in the empty box, conferring her assent to the transfer of the care of her last remaining family member to someone she had never met.

There was no space for Zenna's signature file.

…

The quarantine cells in the Guardian Academy were significantly cleaner and less smelly than the ones in Silicon Tor, but at least Zenna had been alone. This time, she was sharing a cell with a virus who could have torn her apart in a moment, had he felt so inclined. The man-sized lizard sat brooding on the bench, leaning forward under the weight of spiked armour that covered his shoulders. His purple scaled body was swathed in a midnight blue robe that pooled around his clawed feet and rippled whenever he moved his skinny tail that was longer than he was tall. The virus called himself the Lord of Nightmares and Zenna wondered how anyone would be able to sleep after encountering that face with its short, sharp tusks protruding forwards from the end of his powerful jaw and burning scarlet eyes that riveted her to the spot.

'Tell me what you have done to end up here with me.' Nightmares demanded with a voice that could frighten boulders into submission.

'I stabbed someone, sir,' the little virus replied.

'Was it your first deletion?'

Zenna was shocked. 'No, sir, I've never deleted anyone. I wanted to repair the damage, but they wouldn't let me.'

'Repair the damage?' the huge virus repeated incredulously. Then he laughed, throwing his head back and roaring loudly, his forked tongue lolling over his bottom jaw. 'Viruses don't repair! We destroy! We pillage! We tear down the work of others and mock them as they scrabble in the ashes, trying to make sense of their ruined worlds.'

'What did you do?' Zenna asked, puzzled at how anyone could laud such actions as achievements.

'I am the Lord of Nightmares,' the virus declared. 'I took the darkest fears and most intrusive thoughts of sprites and made them all come true, one by one.'

'How did you do that?' Zenna asked quickly, cutting off the massive virus before he could start describing anything in detail.

'I can alter the memories of sprites and bend their wills to my own.'

The little virus considered this, wondering if her cellmate really was as powerful as he looked 'If you can do that, why haven't you made the guardians release you?'

The Lord of Nightmares glared at Zenna with such ferocity that she tried to shuffle even further away from him, but her efforts were futile as she was already sitting on the floor with her back pressed against the wall. 'They will not let me get close enough to them.' He admitted, ruminating for a moment while his forked tongue flicked in and out from between his fangs. 'But they have no reason to fear you.'

'Well, no...'

'They would not expect you make them release me.'

'But I can't...'

'I will give you the functionality to do what I can, then you attack the guardians when they come for me.'

Zenna swallowed hard. 'How do you know I'm willing to do that?' she questioned. 'The guardians won't delete me for what I did, but if I attacked them in the way you want me to then they almost definitely would.'

The Lord of Nightmares stood up from the bench, crossed the cell in two paces and towered over Zenna, who quailed under his gimlet stare. He bent down to her level and placed a massive hand on top of her head. She was instantly plunged into a vision of her own death in an abandoned warehouse, clutching a melon baller in her shaking hands.

'I can make you do that,' he leered.

Zenna did not need any further persuasion. 'Okay,' she nodded. 'I'll help you.'

The lizard clamped his scaly digits around Zenna's mouth, preventing her from screaming as he forced the elongated claw of his index finger deep into her left ear, damaging it permanently as he bestowed the ability to change minds and alter memories onto the little virus. The energy that carried the new code burned through her body and she collapsed to her knees, gasping as her face was released.

'I trust you know what to do.'

Holding her ear, which now only fed her static, Zenna nodded. She got back to her feet with considerable difficulty, wondering why her dress was so much shorter than it had previously been.

Then she realised what had happened.

'You've upgraded me!' Zenna said, looking down at her body which was now an elegant hourglass shape.

'Of course I did,' Nightmares said. 'I wasn't going to give that amount of power to a child.'

Zenna sighed. Ideal had insisted that she maintain her unthreatening youthfulness to continue living as a benign virus, for all the good it had done her. At least she was not very tall; nobody took short viruses seriously until it was too late. Zenna tugged the hem of her skirt down to cover her bottom and sat next to the lizard, knowing the guardians would arrive for one of them soon.

They did not have long to wait.

The sound of several pairs of heavy footsteps approaching echoed down the corridor, followed by the beeping of the door to the walkway outside their shared cell being unlocked. A team of four heavily-armoured guardians wearing full-face helmets and carrying powerful energy rifles entered, manoeuvring a secure transport unit between them, a cage to transport a virus to the deletion chamber several levels further below where they here currently being held. The team stopped in front of the cell and looked at the huge virus. The self-styled Lord of Nightmares stared coolly back. Nobody paid any mind to the little virus as they prepared to lower the force-field.

The doors beeped and opened again. This time, Zenna recognised Turbo the Prime Guardian, but not his relatively diminutive companion, blue skinned and with kind brown eyes that made Zenna think of Bob. Unlike Bob, this guardian had a navy goatee beard and had perfectly straight long navy hair that reached halfway between his shoulder and elbow, parted in the middle and all the same length like the bass player in a prog metal band but the white lab coat he wore suggested that he had chosen a different career path. He approached the cell enthusiastically and the force field zapped out of existence.

'Hello there, you must be Zenna Diode. I'm Doctor Fred and we're going to be working together from now on.'

'Nice to meet you, Fred.' Zenna nodded, gently taking his outstretched hand and stepping out of the cell while keeping her vicious cellmate in the corner of her vision.

Turbo had noticed the presence of the other virus and had made a mental note to find out who had thought that putting the two of them together was a good idea. He looked forward to hearing those excuses.

'The Prime Guardian himself,' Nightmares remarked as the helmeted team unlocked the transport unit. 'This has turned out far better than I could have hoped.'

'What do you mean, virus?' Turbo asked.

'Show him,' he replied.

'No.' Zenna stated firmly, standing close to Doctor Fred as if he could help her. The condemned creature turned to face his fellow captive and bared his teeth. There were an awful lot of them and they looked very sharp indeed.

'Do you dare defy me?' he began.

'Yes, I do,' Zenna replied, lifting her chin and setting her jaw firmly. The guards powered up their weapons and waited for instruction from Turbo.

'We had a deal,' Nightmares reminded the girl who stubbornly refused to do his bidding.

'You two were collaborating?' Turbo questioned.

'Yes, sir,' Zenna admitted. 'He wanted me to help him get out, but I had no intention of helping such an evil, twisted waste of code escape the justice he deserves.' Emboldened by the presence of half a dozen guardians with a large amount of weaponry at their collective disposal, she finished with a parting shot. 'Deletion is too good for him.'

'You treacherous little cat!' the Lord of Nightmares roared and launched himself at the smaller virus, fully intent on tearing her apart. Protective of his newly-acquired charge, Fred scrambled to push Zenna out of the way.

'Copeland! Containment field!' Turbo commanded.

Turbo's key tool wrapped itself around the virus in a stack of glowing red bands, sending the vicious creature crashing to the ground just short of Fred's high heeled boots.

'Delete him.' Turbo ordered.

Zenna watched, horrified, as the virus perished in a barrage of rifle fire.

The prime guardian turned to the small virus who stared back with pale blue, terrified eyes as she sought comfort in the arms of the doctor. 'Let that be a lesson to you both,' he warned. 'Don't let me down.'

'We won't, sir.' Fred assured him, squeezing Zenna's narrow shoulders. 'We will make sure the Future Guardian Laboratory is a success.'

Zenna glowed with pride at the thought that she could actually be useful to the Guardians and wished that her father could have witnessed it too. She reasoned that even if she could not be a guardian, the next best thing was to serve them.

…

Author's Note: Sharp-eyed UK readers of a certain age may have recognized Zordrak from The Dreamstone putting in a guest appearance as a virus. Sweet dreams!


	5. 0101 - Pixie Booting

**Chapter Five: Pixie Booting**

In the quiet lull before the next patients arrived, Zenna watched intently as Doctor Fred set up the energy transfusion equipment next to the bed that she knew she would be using very soon. It was a routine she knew well – dress up in a red dress that clashed with her lilac skin, tuck her pewter coloured hair away in a white bonnet and smile sweetly while she expended a significant amount of energy spawning a mediocre mewling brat for any couple that came along. Guardian and virus had built up a strange relationship, whereby he would keep her viral nature a secret in return for her participation in his clinic. He called her his assistant, but the reality was that she was more like a hostage.

'I wish you wouldn't make short-notice, out-of-hours appointments,' Zenna complained. 'I had a boxset I wanted to watch tonight.'

'These clients are important,' Fred insisted. 'You can watch your series while you recharge.'

'That's not the point and you know it,' the virus sulked. 'You know how much spawning takes out of me and I've already done it once today, on top of cleaning up after two families and that warrior woman's unscheduled close combat lesson. I suppose I should be grateful that the virus hunter they told me about hasn't turned up as well.'

'You'll be fine, princess.' Fred smiled, patting Zenna on the shoulder as he swiftly returned to his office. Too swiftly.

Zenna glared suspiciously at the doctor. She deeply disliked being called 'princess', being constantly patted on the shoulder and treated like a child despite the horizontally generous proportions she now occupied, but right now the benign virus had exhausted all her options.

Presently, Doctor Fred returned with a standard sprite icon, pre-loaded with code copied from the parents and handed it to Zenna, who weighed it in her hand and appraised it favourably.

'There's a lot more here than usual,' she remarked. 'That's not going to do my figure any favours.'

'You shouldn't be worrying about code bloat at your age,' Fred said reassuringly. 'You'll grow into it soon enough.' He consulted his notes, being careful not to reveal the identity or origin of the parents, not wanting to frighten his timid charge. 'These parents want a girl who is old enough to look after herself.'

'That old?' the virus questioned. 'It's not really worth them bothering.'

'The mother is a career-oriented type,' Fred lied. 'She doesn't want to be burdened with looking after a small baby, but still wants to feel like she is contributing.'

Zenna looked a little bit sad. 'But they're so cute when they're tiny… and I don't need to calibrate their minds.'

Fred leaned in consiprationally, even though they were the only people in the room, and spoke quietly into Zenna's good ear. 'You know it's much easier for them when they start training if they are already prepared,' he reassured her. 'Keep up the good work here and we will be able to go back to the Super Computer.'

Zenna glared up at the doctor as she unpinned her gold-rimmed icon from the centre of her chest and downloaded the new code. 'Remind me why I would want to go back there,' she muttered. 'At least here, there's only Agent C who hates me.'

'Well…' Fred said carefully, 'After what you did to him...'

'It's no more than he deserved after what he did to me, or have you forgotten that?'

The doctor put his hands on Zenna's shoulders and stooped down to her eye level. 'I could never forget what he did, that's why I work so hard to keep you safe.'

'By locking me up in here?' Zenna retorted. 'Tell me how that's fair.'

Fred shook his head and looked disappointed as he stood up again. 'You sound more and more like your sister every day. I really hope you don't turn out like her.'

'Ideal isn't doing too badly,' the virus pointed out tartly. 'She's still wearing her guardian uniform.'

'That was low, even by your standards.'

Zenna didn't bother looking up to reply. 'What else would you expect from me? You can see how short I am.' She double-tapped her icon to incorporate the new code into her own, watching her ample hips and belly expand a little more. 'Did they like your little portable storage device?' she asked, taking it from the doctor's outstretched hand.

'They seemed to,' Fred shrugged. 'I wasn't going to offer them the alternative.'

'You know I prefer picking out memories directly,' the virus pouted. 'It's much more fun!'

'Zenna, you must have messed with the head of every single sprite in this system by now,' the doctor pointed out.

'And not one of them minds a bit,' Zenna chuckled, her fickle mood improving. 'In fact, they love me for it!'

And you wonder why I keep you locked in here, Fred thought to himself. 'You know I can't let you keep doing that.'

'You could try asking the JRT to exercise some restraint,' she suggested. She opened the box she had taken off the doctor and removed a white, palm-sized cylindrical object with an angled conical nozzle. Zenna fiddled with the settings and pushed it as far as possible into her otherwise useless left ear, bracing herself for the slew of new memories that inevitably followed.

She was not prepared for the cacophony of game cubes, war, despair and unconditional love that flooded her mind. She recognised Enzo and was utterly terrified at what he had become. Shaking, the virus picked herself up off the floor, grabbing at the doctor's arms as she did so.

'What were you thinking?' Zenna hissed. 'Doting daddy out there deletes viruses for fun and you brought him here? I might as well put my head between my knees and kiss my bitmap goodbye right now.'

'You're overreacting,' Fred said quietly. 'They're from Mainframe and they know Bob – you told me all about Enzo and Frisket. He is bound to remember you, so he will also know you're benign.'

Zenna was unconvinced. 'You might be right about that, but why did he bring his Gun into a hospital? That weapon is designed for one thing – killing viruses. Guaranteed to delete anything up to a Class Five which, in case you hadn't noticed, I. Am. Not.' She stared at Fred, her pale blue eyes stretched so wide the white was visible all the way around. 'Normal people don't need things like that.'

'Maybe he's spent so long fighting in games and travelling in degraded systems that he's lost perspective of what constitutes normal?' Fred suggested.

'Is that supposed to make me feel better?!'

Fred looked hurt. 'Don't you think I can protect you?'

He would snap you like a leaf node, Zenna thought to herself, realising that there was no reasoning with the doctor when he was in one of these moods. 'Of course you can,' she smiled. 'You can protect me from anything.'

His ego suitably massaged, Fred let the virus take a moment to compose herself before he spoke again. 'I've made sure the parents will be staying in the waiting room, so you can work your magic in private, but please don't take too long.'

'It's not magic,' Zenna pointed out firmly. 'Just good old viral reproduction and it will take as long as it takes to do a good job.'

Zenna pinned the new icon to the centre of her abdomen, closed her eyes and held her hands over it. Concentrating hard, her belly swelled up into a neat dome. She paused, took a deep breath and tugged the sphere away from her body grimacing in pain as she did so. Fred winced too.

The sphere glowed lilac as Zenna cradled it in her arms, moving them further and further apart as the sphere elongated into an egg shape with the icon floating on the surface. Placing the glowing mass onto the bed, the virus formed arms and legs, lengthening and straightening the limbs while the lilac energy faded. Zenna visibly relaxed as she opened her eyes to look at the child she had formed.

Green skin, violet eyes, black hair with an emerald sheen tied up in four bunches with red bobbles. Even her outfit was strongly reminiscent of Enzo, but Zenna had incorporated turquoise scales on her shorts and a starfish motif on her white t-shirt from her mother. Child class sprites always inherited their father's pigmentation, but their other attributes were the result of a convoluted merge process, the outcome of which the virus could never fully predict, but so far everyone had gone away happy. Eventually.

As she attempted to neaten the unruly fringe that framed the delicately pointed features of the unresponsive sprite, Zenna wondered just how long it had been since she first met Enzo and concluded that she must have lost track of time at some point for him to be old enough to want to start a family.

'Um, Zenna?' Fred asked. 'Is there something wrong with the sprite? You're daydreaming again.'

'No, she's fine… Better than fine...' the virus replied. 'She's brilliant.'

The doctor looked over his assistant's shoulder at the sprite. 'You've given her pointy ears.'

'Cute aren't they?' Zenna replied brightly. 'Her mother has them so it seemed logical… I decided against the webbed toes, though.'

'I'll trust your judgement on that,' Fred said dubiously. 'Is she ready for calibration?'

'Yes, sorry,' Zenna answered quickly. She gently probed inside the small sprite's ear with the little finger of her left hand, the nail inches long and needle-sharp. The virus slipped inside her empty mind to furnish it with the memories and skills generously donated by her parents, readying the little sprite for life in the games. Satisfied with her work, the virus gathered her courage and turned to Fred. 'She's ready now.'

'Let's hope the parents are as pleased with her as you seem to be,' the doctor remarked, waking the child with a gentle shake. 'Come on, time to say hello to your parents before they go.'

'Aren't you forgetting something?' Zenna asked, rolling up her sleeve. Fred tutted, helped the freshly deployed sprite off the bed, allowing the virus to lie back as she was connected to the energy transfusion unit.

'Couldn't you have waited a few more nanoseconds?'

'I've had a nasty shock,' Zenna protested. 'I've just spawned a whole new sprite for you and you're snipping at me.'

Fred paused and sighed, mindful of his conduct. 'I know,' he said gently. 'I'm sorry I tried to hide this from you.' He lifted Zenna's favourite thick blanket off the shelf above the bed and spread it over her, caressing her cool, pale cheek with the back of his finger as he did so. 'You've earned this rest,' he smiled, then drew the curtain in front of the bed, affording the virus some privacy as she snuggled down into the soft fabric and waited for the trouble to erupt in the next room.

The doctor opened the door and ushered the child into the consultation room. The small green sprite gave her mother a cursory greeting, took one look at Matrix and launched herself into the air and directly at his chest.

'Daddy!'

Matrix leaped to his feet and caught his daughter with one arm, holding her close while she talked at him, inches from his face.

'My name's Pansy and I can't wait to get back home to Mainframe with you even though we will have to go back into the games so I promise I will listen to everything you and mummy say because even though games are fun they're dangerous too – nearly as dangerous as Megabreath and when we get back to Mainframe you're going to kick his bitmap and that's going to be so cool because he totally deserves it.' she paused for breath and looked around. 'Where's Frisket?'

'He's at home, waiting to meet you as soon as we've finished here,' AndrAIa said, unable to take her eyes off the child. At first blush, she seemed to be everything she had dared to hope for.

'Hang on,' Matrix cut in. 'What did you say your name was?'

'Pansy,' the little sprite grinned. 'Pansy Matrix.'

'Like the flower,' AndrAIa explained.

'No, that won't do,' Matrix said. 'What about putting both names together to make Trixie?'

AndrAIa looked murderous.

Matrix glared back, claiming a clear victory in the Angry Face Contest.

'What about Pixie?' the contentiously-named sprite suggested. 'Pixie Matrix. I still get to keep the P from Pansy that way and I think I'm big enough to have some input into my own name.'

The sprite formerly known as Enzo studied his daughter's face as she looked steadily back at him without a trace of irony or defiance. 'I suppose you are,' he conceded.

She's not the only one taking the P, thought Fred to himself.

'Alphanumeric!' Pixie cheered, feigning ignorance of her parent's disagreement.

'Please don't say that...' Matrix asked.

'Aww, why not?' the little sprite asked, looking disappointed. 'It was your favourite word when you were my age.'

'You certainly know a lot about me,' he remarked. 'Is that the memory transfer you were telling me about, Andi?'

AndrAIa nodded. 'It was all in the instruction leaflet.'

'Good! I'm so glad you read that,' Fred said brightly, rubbing his hands together and opening a screen on his desk. 'All we need to do now is sort out an appointment for you to visit your daughter during her training and you can go home.'

'Visit…?' Pixie asked, visibly upset.

'Training…?' AndrAIa echoed, getting nervous.

'Zenna…?' Matrix said, catching sight of a short, plump figure in a long red dress peering through the doorway of the delivery room. She eyed Matrix warily, unsure of how safe she would be around him since his transformation into a merciless virus hunter. The sight of the huge renegade carrying his daughter despite her origins, emboldened her and she let herself relax a little.

'Enzo Matrix,' she smiled. 'That's a name I haven't heard in a long time.'

'I go by Matrix now,' he corrected her, putting Pixie down.

Zenna looked embarrassed. 'Sorry.'

Fred was beginning to get nervous. He really had not wanted Zenna and Matrix to meet and was baffled why she had left the sanctuary of the delivery room. 'Zenna, there has been some confusion. These two think that they can take the sprite home with them.'

'But the couple I saw earlier today were taking their baby home with them!' AndrAIa protested.

'But they had a baby,' Fred explained. 'Babies need their parents. This one is old enough to look after herself – about the same age as you two were when you started travelling through the games?'

Upon hearing this, Matrix could have happily deleted Fred on the spot, guardian or not.

'I don't understand,' AndrAIa protested. 'What do you mean about training?'

'With Zenna's help, I'm building up an army fit to be the guardians of the future. She spawns them and I train them,' the doctor paused and backtracked. 'Well, not me personally, I run the hospital where they get better.'

Matrix pointed at the wall of thank-you cards. 'You had Zenna spawn all these sprites?'

'Oh yes,' Fred replied, almost proudly. 'Some of them were twins and not everyone sent a card, so there are even more.'

'Why are you telling us all this?' AndrAIa asked.

'Because I know you will want to be a part of this.'

Matrix shook his head. 'We've already told you that we're not staying here.'

Fred hurried over to the door and attempted to block the Mainframers escape. 'You can't go yet – You promised that you would tell us everything you know about games and the Web.'

'It's okay, I already know everything,' Zenna volunteered, positioning herself in front of the doctor.

'Let me guess,' Matrix said. 'The memory transfer?'

Zenna looked sheepish. 'Yes,' she nodded. 'Sorry.'

Fred placed his hands on Zenna's shoulders and muttered in her good ear. 'Will you stop apologizing? You haven't done anything wrong.'

Zenna turned to face the doctor, eyes like saucers. 'Seriously?' she mouthed.

'So we can go now?' AndrAIa asked.

'I'd like to see him try and stop us,' Matrix said, mildly amused at the thought of it. 'Come on Pixie, let's get you home.'

'No, not her,' Fred interrupted, putting a hand on the smaller sprite's head.

Matrix and AndrAIa stopped dead and turned to face the guardian.

'You told us that you would make an exception for us because of Bob,' AndrAIa said. 'So what's the problem.'

'I didn't say you could take the child with you.' Fred pointed out.

'He's actually serious...' Matrix began. 'He actually thinks he can make us leave without our daughter.'

'Everyone else has!' Fred said, panic rising in his voice. 'We can't make an exception for you just because you're new here.'

'I've got an exception for you...' Matrix growled, closing in on the doctor. 'Let us go before I throw you so far up the stack that you...'

Fred waved his hands pathetically in front of him. 'Wait! I've got an idea!' He yelped.

'We're all ears.' AndrAIa said flatly.

Fred tried to calm himself down as he explained his plan. 'There is a way you could see Pixie all the time. You – both of you – could train the younger sprites.' Relieved that he was still processing, Fred continued to dig himself deeper in to the hole. 'You've both got so much experience, you would be really valuable teachers.'

'Really valuable teachers,' Matrix repeated as if he was trying to convince himself of what he had just heard. 'Teaching children how to fight and survive.'

'Yes, that's right,' Fred nodded.

'Children.' Matrix said again.

Fred continued to nod. 'The guardians of the future. With the expansion of the Net, there are going to be huge numbers of systems coming online and this is a way of bolstering the numbers of guardians needed to play games, fight viruses and keep the world safe for everyone.'

The silence that followed Fred's self-incriminating monologue was only punctured by a vein throbbing in Matrix's temple. He took two steps towards the doctor although Zenna moved to intervene, Matrix swept her aside with the back of his hand, sending the virus staggering. He grabbed the back of her dress and set her back on her feet without breaking his stride, then picked Fred up by his throat and slammed him against the wall. Small cracks appeared in the plaster, peppering the hapless doctor with pink powder. Matrix unclipped Gun from its holster and pressed the muzzle against Fred's forehead, making him whimper.

'Please don't kill me,' the blue sprite begged. 'I've got so much to give.'

'Enzo! Stop that!' AndrAIa scolded.

'Yeah, you're right,' Matrix said, returning his weapon to his thigh. 'I don't need that because I'm going to delete him with my bare hands.' He finished with a vicious snarl and Fred's eyes bulged out of his head.

'Why do you need to delete him?' Pixie piped up.

The red mist cleared from Matrix's eyes long enough for him to acknowledge his daughter. 'It's because he thinks it's okay to split up families and train their children to fight.'

Pixie pondered this. 'So if he thought something different, then you wouldn't want to delete him?'

Matrix tried to fathom this logic. 'How can you change what someone thinks?'

Pixie looked at Zenna, who had retreated back to the doorway of the delivery room. 'Zenna can manipulate minds.'

'What? No! Don't let her near me!' Fred protested. 'She's a virus!'

'No she's not!' Pixie cried. 'She can't be! Tell me he's lying, Dad, please!'

'She is a virus,' Matrix said. 'But sometimes the ends justify the means.' He looked over at Zenna. 'Do you think you could do that?' he asked. 'Make a difference?'

'I'll do what I can,' Zenna said, emerging from behind the door frame. She fetched a chair from the delivery room and placed it on the floor near the doctor.

'What's that for?' he asked.

'I can't reach.'

'You're not seriously ordering a virus to mess with a guardian's head, are you?' Fred asked. 'What would the Guardian Malpractice Committee make of it?'

'I'm not a guardian,' the renegade growled. 'And you don't behave like one either.' He turned to Zenna. 'Well? Are you doing this, or what?'

'Sorry,' Zenna apologised again, gathering up her skirt as she climbed onto the chair, where she was now at eye level with Fred. She reached out a hand towards his face, but the doctor put up a noisy protest.

'Oh, do be quiet,' Matrix sneered, plucking Zenna's bonnet off her head and stuffed it in Fred's mouth. A small smile played around the corners of the virus' mouth as she watched him squirm.

'You're enjoying this, aren't you?' Matrix muttered.

Zenna looked as shocked and innocent as she possibly could, then smiled demurely. 'I live to serve.'

'Serve who, though?'

Zenna opened her mouth, then closed it again. 'I'll get back to you on that.' The virus held the doctor's head in both hands and locked eyed with him. She lengthened the fingernails on her little fingers and slid them into Fred's ear canals. 'This is your first failure.' she said firmly. 'The code of these two sprites was not compatible. Due to the game sprite code, the compilation threw a wincest error and we couldn't fix it. We're so sorry.' Zenna bit her lip and tears pooled in her pale eyes. 'You promised these sprites so much and you failed them – we failed them.' Zenna sniffed noisily as she fought back the sobs. 'AndrAIa is devastated and has gone back to the flat on her own.'

AndrAIa's eyes widened as she realised what the virus was up to and she ushered Pixie out of the consultation room.

Zenna continued. 'Matrix has lost his entire family and now he is the last one left, with no prospect of having a family of his own with the woman he loves, so all you can do is give him a big man-hug before taking a long hard look at your life.' She held the doctor's head in her hands while she rearranged a significant amount of his memory, unearthing parts he really would rather have forgotten. She knew he would hate it when he regained full consciousness and the smirk that had previously played on her lips now erupted into a full blown grin of triumph as she realised that she was now free of the demand to spawn doomed sprites. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Matrix glaring at her. At such close proximity, this was a terrifying sight, especially for a virus painfully aware of her own limited capability. 'Sorry,' she said letting go of the doctor.

'You need to be careful,' Matrix warned. 'Power corrupts.'

'I know,' Zenna mumbled. 'I'm sorry.'

Matrix lowered Fred to the floor, where he stood motionless for a few moments while Zenna fixed the bruises on his neck and straightened his ruffled hair. The renegade turned to go, but Zenna called after him.

'Matrix, um...' she began nervously, freezing when she realised that she had his full attention. She took a deep breath and continued quickly. 'I know it's a lot to ask, but can I go back to Mainframe with you? Bob did say it was okay...'

'Bob's gone.' Matrix put in bluntly. 'You should know that since you've stolen my memories.'

'I'm sorry,' Zenna apologised again. 'But if I travelled with you, I could be useful. You know what I'm capable of.'

Matrix looked over to where Fred still stood propped against the ruined wall. 'I'm well aware of what you can do, which is why your place is here.' He tapped the nearest thank-you card attached to the wall. 'How many of these children have been taken from their parents?'

'Most of them,' the virus admitted.

'What about the rest? Will they be taken when they get to Pixie's age?'

Zenna nodded, scarcely able to maintain eye contact.

'You do realise you have to power to stop that happening,' Matrix said, as if it were a simple thing to accomplish.

Zenna looked long and hard at the inert form of the doctor. 'Does that mean I'm working for you now?'

The renegade nodded carefully. 'Yeah, I guess you are. You do work for me now.'

Carefully keeping her expression neutral, Zenna bowed her head graciously and said; 'I live to serve.'

Matrix felt a sense of creeping unease, like he had just been tricked into something. He watched the virus approach the doctor with a boldness that she did not previously possess. 'What just happened?'

'We made a contract,' Zenna explained. 'You're my responsible guardian now.'

'I'm not a guardian,' Matrix said again.

'Neither is he,' Zenna shrugged. 'Not a proper one, like Bob. Why do you think he spent so long teaching? You wouldn't believe how he deals with the games...'

Unimpressed by her insolence, Matrix made the most of the opportunity to exert his authority. He caught up with the virus and put his massive hand on the back of her neck, holding her head still while he addressed her at close range. 'Watch it, you,' he growled. 'You're working for me now. Remember your place and show more respect.'

Frightened by Matrix's sudden change in attitude, Zenna looked at the floor. 'Sorry. I'll go and help him come round.' She carefully removed her bonnet from Fred's mouth and used it to wipe a thread of spittle that ran from the corner of his mouth before stashing it in a pocket. She cradled his face in her hands, kissed him gently on the lips and burst into tears. 'I'm sorry I failed you, Fred,' she sobbed. The doctor blinked several times and hugged Zenna's head into his chest.

Matrix felt sick.

'It wasn't your fault,' Fred reassured the virus. 'We never did figure out how to fix wincest errors, did we?' He looked up at Matrix, 'I am so sorry we couldn't give you what you wanted.'

Matrix snorted cynically. 'I guess that's just how my life goes,' he said bitterly. 'Just one loss after another.'

Letting Zenna go, Fred reached up and put his hand on Matrix's massive shoulder then moved into a full on hug. Unsure what to do, Matrix gingerly patted the doctor on the back.

'You need to go home and see to your wife,' Fred advised. 'She must be absolutely devastated with the way this has turned out.'

'Yeah, she is.' Matrix agreed, not missing a beat in Zenna's charade.

'If there's anything I can do for you, please don't hesitate to ask.'

'Thanks – I will.' Matrix nodded and left the consultation room with as much dignity as he could muster.

Zenna stared at the door, rooted to the spot, scarcely able to believe what had just transpired. Little Enzo Matrix, the goofy kid from an unremarkable system, had transformed himself into a powerful virus hunter that had seen fit to not only spare her life, but also to give her free rein to take apart the entire hateful command structure of the system. She could have danced with glee, but decided to save that for later.

Doctor Fred turned to Zenna and saw her puffy red eyes, tear streaked face and distant expression. 'This has been hard on you, too, hasn't it?'

Zenna nodded, twisting the front of her red dress in her hands. 'I'm… completely drained.' She admitted.

'Come on, let's get you hooked up to the energy transfer again,' Fred said, ushering his assistant into the delivery room and helping her up onto the bed. He connected the equipment to Zenna's arm and covered her unprotesting form with a blanket. 'None of this is your fault,' he reassured her. 'You take as long as you need.' The doctor drew the curtain around the bed and crept out of the room, closing the door behind him. He lifted the screenshot on his desk upright again, then looked at the walls full of certificates, accolades and thank-you cards and wondered if what he was doing really was the right thing to do.

Out of sight of the doctor, Zenna grinned as she turned the energy flow up to eleven.


	6. 0110 - Parent Class

**Chapter Six: Parent Class**

Matrix did not hurry as he walked back to the apartment. It was going to take him a while to get used to the fact that he was now a father and even longer before he could reconcile himself with the circumstances of his daughter's entry into the world. Coupled with the facts that the guardian was sanctioning the forced separation of families while a virus took care of the mending and defending, Matrix felt that this system's problems were too big for him and AndrAIa to solve and he found himself looking to the sky and wishing for a game cube to drop.

Eventually he returned home where he found AndrAIa and Pixie sitting in pyjamas, sharing a sofa and mugs of cocoa. Frisket lay sprawled and snoozing on the rug. AndrAIa greeted him brightly, but Matrix did not reciprocate.

'I need to wash.' He said flatly and walked into the bathroom.

'I don't think Dad likes me much,' Pixie murmured.

'Of course he does,' AndrAIa reassured her. 'It will just take him some time to show it.'

Pixie still looked unhappy. 'How can he possibly like me when I was forked off a virus?'

'It's not where you come from that's important, it's where you belong.' AndrAIa said. 'And you belong with us.'

'I'll have a think about that.'

'Bear in mind that when your father first met me, he didn't realise I was a game sprite. If he had, he would probably never even have spoken to me, let alone fight the user alongside me. In your case, he knew before you came out of that room that there was a virus involved and he decided to accept you as his own.'

The little sprite looked concerned. 'What would you have done if he had made you choose between us?'

'Now hang on a nano...' AndrAIa began, but stopped when the bathroom door opened and Matrix emerged still wearing the same clothes, but now smelling of soap. He plunked himself down on the other sofa and folded his arms.

'Why don't you change into something more comfortable?' AndrAIa suggested.

Matrix rolled his eyes and double-tapped his icon to change into a leopard print dressing gown and pink fluffy slippers. He looked ridiculous. 'Happy now?' he grunted, but there was no reply from the opposite sofa, only stunned silence. 'You don't have to stop talking just because I'm in the room.'

Pixie switched sofas to sit next to her father, tucking her legs underneath herself. Can I ask you something?'

'Sure.'

'What was Mum like when she was younger?'

Matrix looked thoughtfully at AndrAIa before he answered. 'She was kind, intuitive, bright, pretty much the same as she is now, just shorter.'

AndrAIa laughed.

'My turn now,' she said, suddenly looking more serious. 'Why didn't you tell me about Zenna?'

The renegade's expression darkened. 'There was nothing to tell.'

'Were you jealous when Bob sent her to the Super Computer?' Pixie asked.

Matrix sighed. 'Yeah, I guess I was. When I was your age, all I wanted was to go to the Academy in the Super Computer and Bob sent a virus there, no questions asked!' he paused. 'Thing is, I don't think she even wanted to go.'

Pixie pondered this for a few moments. 'Zenna isn't like the other viruses you've met, is she?'

'What makes you say that?' AndrAIa questioned, curious as to what the virus had placed in her daughter's mind.

'She doesn't look like a virus,' Pixie began, counting points on her fingers. 'She isn't trying to take the system over in any way and deep down she believes in the guardian protocol of mend and defend.'

'You know an awful lot about her,' Matrix remarked suspiciously.

'She probably put all that in there when she uploaded your mind.' AndrAIa said.

'Makes me wonder what else is in there.'

AndrAIa looked at him sharply. 'Enzo!'

Matrix glared back. 'If she has been brainwashed, I think we ought to know.'

'In that case, could you please not go wandering off in the middle of the night trying to find out?'

'No promises,' he replied. 'That virus is up to something. She thinks she works for me and has already asked to come back to Mainframe with us. I told her no.'

'I think she would be quite handy to have around,' AndrAIa began quickly. 'Her reconstruction ability could be really useful if we come across a badly degraded system.'

'Handy to have around?' Matrix repeated. 'You sound like that failed guardian. The last thing we need is a virus following us across the Net like a corrupted attachment.'

'So where does that leave me?' Pixie challenged, suddenly getting upset. 'You're talking about the virus that spawned me, so do you look at me and see corruption too? Are just waiting for the next game to come along so you can escape this system and leave me behind, pretending I never existed?' Having worked herself up into a fury, she balled her fist and aimed a punch at Matrix's midriff, but the massive sprite was too quick and caught hold of her hand, stopping it mid-swing. He held it there as he leaned down to meet her eye level. Pixie realised that she had overstepped the mark and swallowed hard.

'Would I hit you?' he asked.

Pixie looked ashamed. 'No, sir,' she admitted.

'So you don't hit me either,' Matrix explained.

Pixie nodded stiffly and let her hand fall back into her lap and quietly stared into space.

'Are you okay?' AndrAIa asked.

'I don't know,' Pixie murmured. 'My head is full of fighting, surviving, ruined systems, game cubes and most of what I know about Mainframe is war. I feel like Zenna was preparing me for the training Fred was talking about.'

'You're not going anywhere near any training,' Matrix vowed. You're staying with us, whatever it takes.'

Pixie fiddled with her bottom lip. 'I wish I could believe that.'

This hit Matrix like a sock full of wet sand. 'Don't you trust me?' he asked, stunned.

'It's not you,' Pixie pointed out. 'It's the rest of the world I'm worried about.'

'And so you should be.'

Only AndrAIa saw how the pale green face crumpled into silent sobs. Frisket got up from the floor and plonked his massive head in Pixie's lap with a whine.

It all made sense to Matrix now. The young sprite was about the same age as he and AndrAIa had been when they were dragged away from their home, but they had made it through on their own, so why couldn't Pixie?

Then the answer occurred to him.

They had not been alone.

They had always had each other.

Gently, tentatively, Matrix reached out a massive arm and placed it around Pixie's narrow shoulders. He gently pulled her closer to himself, but the little sprite resisted. Slightly perturbed, he tried again more forcefully and she toppled over into his side. Matrix was going to hug his daughter whether she liked it or not.

'Andi,' Matrix said in the near-silent whisper he had perfected over time. His partner's acute hearing picked it up and she looked over. 'We will be fine,' he reassured her.

AndrAIa blinked, unconvinced.

As if to prove his point, Matrix wrapped both arms around their daughter, whose sobs were now subsiding. 'They do say that three is a magic number, don't they?'

The game sprite managed a small smile. Frisket rested his enormous head on Matrix's uncharacteristically slippered feet and sighed.

…

Agent C looked at Doctor Fred with disdain as the two men sat alone in the CommandCom's office. The sky outside was not yet completely dark, but it would not be long until it was.

'Why did you feel it was necessary to drag me back into the office this late at night for the sole purpose of having an existential crisis?' Agent C asked irritably. 'Couldn't you have waited until tomorrow morning?'

'I don't think it's fair on Zenna to keep making her do this,' the doctor explained. 'We've got so many young sprites now, I don't think we need to spawn any more.'

'What about your waiting list?'

Fred drummed his fingers on the desk. 'I was thinking of letting them, well… wait. If they really want a child then it won't matter how long it takes.'

'So you're putting sentimentality towards your virus above the instructions of the Guardians?'

'I don't recall them specifying a number.'

'I recall that they wanted as many as possible.'

'In that case, what we have is what they're going to get,' the doctor stated firmly. He glared at the CommandCom as if daring him to argue. He did not, instead powering down his organizer.

'Well, in that case we will have to capitalize on what we have,' he said. 'I am, however, rather disappointed that your virus did not feel it worth her while attending this meeting herself, but I suppose that is more than you can expect from one of her type.'

'Just because Zenna is a virus, she still has the right to make her own decisions.'

'Sometimes.'

Fred shifted in his seat and said nothing.

Agent C continued. 'She works for you! You should have made her come along too, or doesn't she think you could keep her safe from me?'

'Zenna is not feeling very well today,' Fred explained, not rising to the bait this time. 'She's resting in the delivery room, attached to the energy transfusion unit.'

The CommandCom's left eyebrow appeared over the frame of his dark glasses. 'Do you think that's wise, doctor?' he asked. 'She is a virus, after all, and you have plumbed her directly into the core energy of this system.'

'Don't worry about her,' the doctor said with a dismissive shrug. 'She's a virus in name only. She's so benign, she can't even infect herself.'

This did not amuse Agent C. He bore the scars of her violent temper. 'This is the first time she has crashed out on you, isn't it?'

Fred nodded. 'I think I may have worked her a little too hard today.'

'How so?'

'The Juvenile Retrieval Team visited two families this morning, a couple had a baby in the afternoon, then the woman from the game cube ran a very tough training session and they needed Zenna to put everyone back together,' Fred took a sip of tea. 'If I had known about that, I would not have set up the out-of-hours appointment with them to spawn a child for them because Zenna was clearly exhausted, but I didn't want to cancel on them.'

'One more day would not have hurt.'

Fred plonked his cup on the desk. 'But it might have,' he argued. 'A game cube might have landed and were are in no position to stop them leaving.' The doctor leaned closer to Agent C. 'We really needed their codebases for this plan to succeed.'

'Is there something wrong with the codebases of the sprites already living here?' The CommandCom asked defensively.

The doctor shifted awkwardly in his chair. 'The people here are very good at keeping things clean and tidy, but they don't have the stomach for a fight or the natural ability to think on their feet that we need.'

'I'm sorry that my system did not meet your expectations.' Agent C said flatly. 'I'll wipe your feet on the way out.'

'I'm not going anywhere until this plan succeeds.' Fred vowed.

Agent C gazed silently at the doctor for a moment. 'What is your opinion of the game cube sprite's offspring?'

Fred sighed heavily. 'There isn't one. It didn't work out for them.'

Agent C froze. 'It… didn't?'

'No - it threw a wincest error because they have some common code to enable them to travel through the games.' Fred put a hand over his mouth and stared into the middle distance. 'They were so upset, they've lost so much and we couldn't give them what we have already given to so many other sprites. Zenna tried so hard, she was starting to become translucent, so I set her up with the energy transfusion and she has been there ever since.'

'A touching story,' Agent C nodded. 'If it were true, it would be an absolute tragedy.'

'It is true!' Fred protested.

'That's what you think.'

'I remember all of it!'

'So can you tell me who this is, then?' Agent C asked, sliding a screenshot of AndrAIa and Pixie leaving the treatment room across the table to Fred. He looked at it and his jaw fell open in disbelief.

'But I remember it!' he spluttered. 'I remember it all!'

Agent C steepled his fingers. 'Let's run through your pet virus' three "talents". She can repair, she can spawn and she can alter memories.'

'She wouldn't have…' Fred began, then trailed off, absent mindedly rubbing his throat.

'It seems she already has.' Agent C said grimly. 'I'll sent a team out to collect the offspring first thing in the morning.'

'You say that like it's unusual...'


	7. 0111 - Breakpoint

**Chapter Seven: Breakpoint**

Zenna lay alone in the darkness of the delivery suite, the tiny room where she had lived in hiding since arriving with Doctor Fred so long ago, thinking long and hard about the events of the day as she absorbed more energy than ever before. She had prided herself on being a benign virus, but her conversation with Matrix had turned that on it's head and she felt the weight of responsibility for her part in creating families, only to tear them apart over and over again. It would have been too much to bear, but for the plan she was forming. A viral belligerence that had first surfaced when she altered Fred's memories of Pixie had taken root in Zenna's mind and blossomed in to a lofty plan, fed and watered with rich pickings from the code and memories of Matrix and AndrAIa. Her hunger for energy sated, the virus removed the arm cuff of the transfusion unit and hung it on the hook for the last time. She then unpinned her gold-rimmed icon from her chest and replaced it on her abdomen, where she flexed her fingers, closed her eyes and concentrated hard one more time.

Lilac energy shimmered around Zenna's fingers as her belly swelled into a proud, high dome which she tugged away from her body with an uncomfortable grunt and held in front of her, moving her hands over the surface as the sphere elongated into an egg with lilac limbs strengthening and straightening inside. Zenna placed the child on the floor and held her hands as she grew until she was an adult slightly taller than the virus herself. At this point, Zenna took a small step back to examine her handiwork.

The virus had spawned a recompiled version of herself and used AndrAIa as a template.

Taller, stronger, dressed in a sleeveless coat in shimmering midnight blue with black spike heeled lace up boots beneath the shin-length hem of her purple dress. Zenna re-pinned her icon on the wide left lapel of her coat and walked behind her new form to rearrange the folds around the bustle, the back hem of which just brushed along the floor.

'Swish.' Zenna remarked, quite literally, to herself. Her pewter coloured hair now draped over one shoulder in a thick plait and an unruly fringe framed her lilac face which now settled into a determined, assertive expression, rather than Zenna's current apologetic, cowering demeanour. This new Zenna was a very different creature and she was rather pleased with how she had turned out. She fiddled with the cuffs of the dress, carefully laying them flat over the backs of her new hands that now sported shining steel fingernails that could still be lengthened at will, but now also capable of piercing most materials and sucking the energy out of them.

Zenna reached up and slipped a long fingernail into the ear of her doppelgänger, carefully transferring all her memories and setting up her skills, just as she had with Pixie, before tapping her on the shoulder to wake her up.

The new Zenna blinked into life, looked down at her predecessor and smiled gently.

'You did it,' she whispered. 'Now sleep.' She placed a hand on the head of the one who spawned her and began to drain her energy. Zenna prime ducked out of the way.

'What are you doing?'

'Reintegrating you,' Nouveau Zenna shrugged. 'You've done what you wanted, haven't you?'

'But you need me to restore...'

'I already know how to do that – I just need to reverse the polarity of the energy flow.'

'Prove it.' Zenna Prime challenged, reaching under her bed and pulling out an axe she had stolen from the gymnasium on the third floor.

'Okay.' Nouveau Zenna agreed, taking the heavy tool and twirling it in her hand like a majorette's baton as she watched her predecessor wince in dread expectation. She drew her arm back and hurled the axe at the armoured door, where it stuck fast. The taller virus pinched two points on top of her own head, drawing out a pair of cat ears as she did so. 'Proof enough?' she asked, grinning as she poked the appendages back into her head, then cupped Zenna' Prime's lilac face in her hand. Their skin tones matched perfectly until the taller virus began to drain her energy again, rendering her complexion several shades lighter.

Zenna Prime looked at the more powerful, ruthless virus she had spawned and knew she was beaten. 'Can I just watch the dawn one more time?'

Nouveau Zenna knew when to stop. 'Okay then, let me help you into bed.'

'Bed? I don't need to lie down...'

A needle-sharp pinky fingernail pierced the soft skin behind her ear and almost every micro watt of energy was drained, leaving her in desperate need of a lie down.

Nouveau Zenna effortlessly lifted her expiring predecessor onto her bed and propped her up with pillows and blankets. Too weak to acknowledge the small act of kindness, Zenna Prime gazed blankly out of the window and felt her structural integrity fail, hoping it would last until the sky brightened.

The only thing standing between Nouveau Zenna and freedom was the armoured door of her tiny delivery room. She picked up the axe again and slid her hands apart along the handle, increasing the size of it as she did so. Drawing the now huge axe behind her, the virus swung it with all the strength she could muster and destroyed the door with one blow. Stepping into the consultation room, she swung the tool a few more times, carefully avoiding the furniture as she tested the strength of her new body. Catching sight of the framed picture on Fred's desk, she paused long enough to calculate a trajectory before swinging the axe clean through the picture, reducing it to smithereens and only taking a tiny chip off the corner of the desk. She grinned broadly, enjoying the feeling of the innate power that came from being a virus surging through her.

It felt good.

A tiny sound from the delivery room caught the virus' attention. It would have been inaudible to her even before she was half-deafened in the Super Computer, but Zenna Prime had installed AndrAIa's superb hearing into her protégé and hoped it would prove useful. She popped her head around the door and looked at the bed where the expiring virus lay whispering.

'Stay. Please. Wait with me… until...'

'Okay then.' Nouveau Zenna agreed with a weary sigh. She flung the window open wide and sat on the sill, dangling one leg outside and drawing the other close to her chest, enjoying the sounds and scent of the breaking dawn. She produced a whetstone from a coat pocket and began to sharpen the blade of her axe.

...

Unlike the previous night, Matrix slept like a baby. The third time he woke up screaming, AndrAIa reached out an arm and flicked the bedside lamp on, rearranging the pillows as she sat up.

'Sorry I woke you up,' he sighed, swinging his legs out of bed and switching back into his normal clothes.

'It's those kids in the training camps, isn't it?' she asked, moving closer to her other half and hugging him from behind, resting her face against his neck.

Matrix held his partner's hands. 'It just brought it all back again, everything we went through in the early days, before we became strong.' He looked up again and stared at the wall that separated the two bedrooms. 'And now we've got Pixie.'

'You're going to be a good dad,' AndrAIa reassured him, adroitly derailing the melancholic course his conversation was about to take.

Almost smiling, he replied; 'And you'll be a great mum,' and reached out to pick up Glitch from the bedside table, next to where Gun was plugged in and charging. 'I'll just go for a walk to clear my head – you go back to sleep, I'll be fine.'

Matrix walked into the living room and a VidWindow popped up next to the front door. It was Agent C, clutching a hand towel soaked in what looked suspiciously like blood to his face. The renegade recoiled in horror. 'Whoa! What happened?'

'I need your help,' Agent C began, sucking air through his teeth as he gritted them. 'This system needs your help. The doctor has got a virus locked up in his office and she escaped and attacked me. All I did was ask why the doctor didn't give you the child you wanted and she did this to me...'

Agent C peeled the sodden towel away from his face to reveal a lattice of ragged scars, filled with dark red congealing liquid where his eyes should have been.

Anger and empathy duetted in Matrix's psyche and he retrieved Gun. 'Zenna did that to you?'

The door to Pixie's bedroom cracked open and she pressed her violet eye to the gap. Matrix looked away quickly. 'Why are you telling me?' He snapped. 'This system is bristling with security and you're in charge of it all. Send some of them and leave me alone.' He moved his hand to cut the channel but the cut in sharply.

'No! You are the only one who knows what that virus is capable of.'

Matrix shorted. 'We met once when we were kids – that's all.'

'So why are you defending her?' Agent C asked. 'She is just another out-of-control virus with a vicious temper,' he winced as he rearranged the towel. 'You can see what she has done, whereas I cannot.'

Knowing his buttons were being pushed, Matrix used Glitch to find out where Zenna was.

This time, two red markers appeared at the location of the hospital. A circular dot and a five-pointed star indicating a Class Five virus. 'Alright, I'll go,' he agreed, trying not to show his alarm at what Glitch had picked up.

'Thank you,' Agent C gasped and cut the communication channel.

Matrix retrieved Gun and as he passed Pixie's bedroom he saw his daughter standing in the doorway, transfixed by the weapon he habitually carried. 'You're not going to delete Zenna, are you?'

'According to Glitch, there's a new virus in town,' Matrix explained. 'It looks like Zenna has spawned a Class Five virus and attacked the CommandCom. I can't let that go.'

The small sprite looked dubious. 'I'm not being funny Dad, but look at the state of Glitch. How can you be so sure?'

Matrix took a deep breath, pinched the bridge of his nose and carefully formulated his next sentence. 'Glitch is a sentient being and I trust him, especially when it comes to viruses.'

Pixie tried again to persuade her father to her way of thinking. 'Without Zenna, I wouldn't be here. She risked everything to make sure I wasn't dragged into the training camps, so will you at least hear her out?'

Matrix ruffled his daughter's hair, then squatted down to her eye level. 'Pixie, what you need to remember is the Zenna wasn't entirely honest with you. She didn't tell you she is a virus, but she did tell you a lot of other things about herself, didn't she?' He paused to allow the small sprite to absorb this. 'Why would she put it in your mind that she is definitely not planning to take over the system, unless she's planning to take everyone by surprise one day?'

'That's a bit of a stretch, Sparky,' AndrAIa interjected.

'I'll go and talk to her, find out the truth.' Matrix said, then stood up to leave. Pixie called him back.

'Stay frosty, Dad,' she smiled.

'You too, kid.'

...

In the toilets of the Principle Office, Agent C tossed the ketchup soaked towel into the sanitary products bin and proceeded to clean the sticky mess off his scarred, eyeless face with a soapy flannel before replacing his dark glasses. He winced a little as they reconnected to his neural network, feeding images directly to his brain. The returned to his office and stood in front of the wall of CCTV cameras to watch Matrix leave his apartment, descend the stairs and ride his zip-board to the hospital after double-checking the location of the virus with his crumpled Key Tool, tapping the screen and giving it a little shake as he did so. Sitting at his desk, Agent C opened a fresh VidWindow.

'I need an instance of the Juvenile Retrieval Team to go to apartment 710, block 1045. There's an unauthorised sprite being hidden there.' He paused. 'Actually, make that two teams, this one will be a tough nut to crack.'

…

The lift was cordoned off for cleaning by a binome who nearly fainted in terror at the sight of Matrix, so he took the stairs to the seventh floor. As he strode along the corridor to Fred's office, each step of his heavy boots echoed around the empty space, sounding like a death knell to a nervous virus. When he reached the door, he kicked it open without checking if it was locked, setting off a loud alarm.

Matrix ripped the offending unit off the wall and the noise ceased with a pathetic whimper.

'Show yourself, virus.'

There was a clattering noise from the delivery room and Nouveau Zenna stumbled out, having fallen off the windowsill. 'Are you okay?' she asked, genuinely concerned. 'Is Pixie okay?'

The huge sprite towered over the virus, despite her increased stature. 'Don't give me that,' he sneered. 'You know what you've done. Where's Zenna?

Zenna drew herself up to her full height and gestured up and down her body with her hands. 'I am Zenna,' she smiled. 'If you mean the old me, she's in there. She's not got long left, bless her. She used up all her energy on me.'

'What in the net are you talking about?' Matrix asked, baffled.

'I respawned so I could do what you asked me to,' the virus explained, as if it were obvious. 'Starting a revolution, no, _leading_ a revolution needs someone with strength, courage and charisma. Someone like I am now.'

'You're telling me you're going to take over the system?'

'No! Not at all!' Zenna protested, putting on an expression of such innocent openness that she might has well have deployed a halo. 'I'm just going to help them realise their dreams.' She took hold of Matrix's arm and tried to lead him over to the window, but he shook his limb free and walked there of his own volition.

The virus pressed her face against the glass. 'Look at all the people,' she said, gazing in awe at the early commuters making their way to work in the dark. 'This is a nice place to live, everyone could be so happy here. Isn't that what everyone really wants?' turning to Matrix, she continued her deliberately rousing speech on a more personal trajectory. 'Isn't that what you want, too? You want to get back to Mainframe and defeat Megabyte so you can live there peacefully with AndrAIa and Pixie, don't you?'

Unmoved, Matrix looked sidelong at the virus, unable to get the image of the injured out of his mind. 'What about Agent C? Do you think he deserves to be happy too?'

'What do you mean?' Zenna asked, puzzled. 'He's perfectly happy. He's got this entire system under his skinny thumb. What more could he possibly want?'

Watching her reaction carefully, Matrix said, 'I saw what you did to him.'

Zenna shifted her feet and looked uncomfortable. 'He… um... attacked me,' she tugged her coat closer to her body and looked away furtively.

Matrix curled his lip in derision. 'You really expect me to believe that? I can't see a single mark on you.'

'You wouldn't,' Zenna said, glancing up briefly.

'I want you to restore his sight,' Matrix instructed the virus. 'I was willing to give you a chance, but I'm beginning to think I made a mistake trusting you after this.'

'What if I refuse?'

'Don't you remember?' the renegade asked. 'You're working for me now.'

'No I don't,' Zenna replied tartly, the pointed into the doorless delivery room. 'She does.'

Matrix turned to face the virus straight on and squared his shoulders to look as imposing as possible. 'Let me get this straight,' he said. 'You're a Class Five virus and you've just told me you plan to overthrow the command structure of this system. Tell me why I shouldn't delete you right now.'

Zenna looked deeply hurt. 'I gave you a daughter,' she said, struggling to comprehend that the sprite she knew as Enzo was contemplating killing her. 'She is the best sprite I've ever spawned. I've changed the doctor's mind. I've turned this system upside down and I've done it all for you.'

The renegade took a step towards the virus, but she stood her ground, inclining her head the smallest amount she could manage while maintaining eye contact as he spoke to her. 'By your logic, that wasn't you, that was her. And you are the reason she's dying. So I'm going to ask you again, why should I let you live?'

'I cannot believe how arrogant you've become!' Zenna said incredulously. 'You think that just because you've got the big gun and guardian icon, that makes you judge, jury and executioner, as if rules just don't apply to you.'

'I can't believe how dangerous you've become,' Matrix replied.

Zenna looked up sharply. 'No I'm not!' she protested. 'I'm benign!'

Matrix narrowed his eyes. 'You're going to have a hard time convincing me of that.'

'Actually, I think I will be able to do that quite easily.'

Before Matrix could react, Zenna leaped at him hooking her claws into the top of his head and digging her spike heels into his thighs to keep herself upright. He tried to push the virus off him, but she was fastened securely into his head and he could feel something uncomfortable going on in his skull.

'You won't be able to get me that easily,' he said through gritted teeth. 'My mind is like a fortress.'

'Watch me.' Zenna hissed, driving the claws of her free hand into his exposed neck and began to drain his energy. 'I can make you think anything I like about me.'

Beginning to get genuinely concerned, Matrix reached for his weapon. 'Gun – targeting.'

Zenna watched with horror as Matrix's bionic eye twisted to targeting mode. She pulled him closer and pressed her forehead against his left cheek, effectively hiding out of targeting range. 'Now what?' she crooned in his ear, ramping up the energy drain.

'Manual mode,' he growled. He pressed the muzzle of Gun against the virus' ribs and pulled the trigger.

Zenna immediately released Matrix and crumpled to the floor in a writhing heap. She flipped over onto all fours and convulsed like a vomiting cat, belching out a jet of purple and green flame that set light to the curtains before she paused to catch her breath. Unsure if this indicated recovery, Matrix knelt on the floor, pinned the virus to the ground with one hand and finished the job.

The smoke from the burning curtains activated the sprinklers, plastering Matrix's hair to his face and soaking the gritty residue of the deleted virus, turning it in to a sticky mess that would ultimately ruin the corporate beige carpet. The delivery room remained dry, so Matrix went hunting for a towel. The lights were off and it was still not bright enough outside to adequately illuminate the room.

'What… are you...' Zenna Prime murmured from the bed.

Matrix stopped short, surprised by the expiring virus. He glanced out of the door and realised that she would have had an uninterrupted view of the demise of her protege. 'I'm sorry you had to see that.' he said quietly.

'She was... going to...'

'She was going to take over the system and woe betide anyone that got in her way,' the renegade said bluntly. 'Including you.'

'Sorry...' she replied in a barely audible whisper.

'You've paid a hefty price for your mistake. Some might say too high, but what's done is done.'

Sensing that Matrix was about to leave, Zenna gathered up the last of her energy to speak. 'Please stay...' she whispered. 'Until...'

Matrix looked back at the virus who was barely visible amongst the blankets and cushions and knew she did not have long left.

'Yeah, okay, I'll stay,' he agreed, sitting on the chair that Zenna had stood on to mess with Fred's head, and settling down with his arms folded to watch the dawn break. It had been a long time since he had done so and he was surprised by how pretty it was.

'Tell Fred… that… I'm...' Zenna began, then trailed off.

'That you're sorry?' Matrix finished, trying not so sound sarcastic.

Zenna nodded.

'I'm sure he already knows.' he said gently.

Comforted by the thought, the virus settled into the blankets that surrounded her.


	8. 1000 - Silent Coup

**Chapter Eight: Silent Coup**

Neither AndrAIa or Pixie were able to get back to sleep after Matrix left, instead they sat at the dining table and pored over a screen displaying charts and plans from the hospital, detailing lists of sprites, their family origins and their performance in game cubes – apparently the ultimate test.

'Did Mouse teach you how to hack?' Pixie asked.

AndrAIa glanced at her daughter. 'This isn't really hacking – they haven't revoked my login details as a temporary employee, but, then again, they didn't actually **give** me permission to look at all this so I have had to use a few tricks Mouse showed me.'

'I hope the next game arrives soon,' the small sprite grinned. 'I can't wait to meet everyone. I've already checked my icon switches to game sprite mode.' she double-tapped her pendant icon and watched it unfold into a triangle. 'See?'

'Somehow, I don't think many other sprites here can do that.' AndrAIa remarked. A column of a spreadsheet headed "JRT" had caught her attention and she investigated further.

'Juvenile Retrieval Team?' Pixie read aloud. 'What sort of monster would want to do that?'

AndrAIa drummed her fingernails on the tabletop. Some of the veneer fell off. 'I led them in a training session yesterday, so I'm not surprised they didn't want to tell me what their job was.'

'So you've given away all your best moves?' Pixie huffed. 'Well done mum.'

'You really need to tone down that attitude,' AndrAIa gently warned the small sprite. 'A lot of the systems your father and I have been to are much rougher than this one, and a quick temper can get a sprite in to a lot of trouble.'

'So why don't we just stay here until this system is back online?' Pixie asked innocently. 'Zenna changed Doctor Fred's mind so there won't be any more training camps and it'll be a safe place to live but if it does turn bad when the government is destabilised then you and Dad can rebuild society from the ground up and you'll do an alphanumeric job because you've seen all the ways things can go wrong so you can make sure you do things properly instead!'

Unperturbed by the monologue, AndrAIa considered this. 'That's an interesting idea, especially since your father is so keen to put a stop to what's going on here and they have a strong link to the Super Computer, like Mainframe does.'

'Does that mean they could re-open the ports at... any time they wanted?'

Mother and daughter stared at each other as they realised how close they were to going home. AndrAIa inclined an ear towards the door. 'Someone's coming,' she said quietly.

'Is it Dad?'

'No.'

Frisket got to his feet and growled at the door.

AndrAIa unfolded her trident.

Pixie raided the kitchen.

AndrAIa told Pixie to put the knives back.

Pixie returned with a cast-iron griddle pan and a meat tenderizing mallet.

There was a polite knock at the door, swiftly followed by a crash of splintering wood as the Juvenile Retrieval Team battered their way into the Matrix family home and found themselves face to face with AndrAIa's trident. The lead sprite put a gloved hand on the tines and pushed them downwards, straightened his black padded jacket and produced a warrant card. 'Ma'am, we are the Juvenile Retrieval Team and we have a warrant to search your apartment and remove the unauthorised youngster from the premises.'

AndrAIa's jaw set firm. 'You think you're going to take my daughter away?'

'That is correct,' the sprite nodded. 'She is the property of the and you have no right to keep her. She is due to start her training.'

'Pixie is going nowhere,' AndrAIa stated, raising her trident again.

…

Fred awoke to a gloriously bright morning with the vague regret that he had not returned to the hospital to ask Zenna to come back to his home with him, rather than stay where she was. He shrugged the feeling off as he brewed a small pot of tea and checked his messages.

There was a notification for a missed alarm in the Consultation Room.

The doctor's blood ran cold and the elegantly patterned cup slipped from his fingers, but he had already left the kitchen before it shattered on the tiles. He did not stop running until he got to the seventh floor of the hospital.

'Zenna?' Doctor Fred called out. 'Are you okay? The intruder alarm went off.' He took in the bootprint in the door, burned curtains and mauve smear on the sodden carpet with two spent bullet casings nearby, and realised the worst.

'She's gone,' Matrix replied, walking out of the delivery room, carrying the bonnet, where he found the doctor picking up the pieces of the picture Zenna had shattered.

Fred looked at the massive sprite and understood why Zenna had been so terrified of him. 'Do I need to ask what you have done with her?' he asked, trying to keep his voice level.

'I'm sorry Fred, but your freak slipped her leash and turned belligerent. Agent C told me she had attacked him and when I got here, I found that she had managed to spawn a Class Five virus.' He handed Zenna Prime's white bonnet to the doctor. There were greasy bits of lilac grit in the folds. 'The Zenna we knew used up all her energy to create a monster and I just couldn't let that go.'

'Zenna attacked Agent C again?' Fred asked incredulously, refolding the bonnet in his hands. 'What did she do this time?'

Matrix shifted uncomfortably. 'It looked like she had put out his eyes. She admitted to it too. Didn't even sound sorry'

Fred shook his head slowly. 'Zenna did that to him a long time ago, when he first found out that she was a virus,' He paused, gathering his thoughts. 'He waited until I was in a game to send one of his teams of henchmen to delete her because he never wanted to see her again.'

'Did she attack them too?'

'Of course not,' Fred replied indignantly. 'She just changed their minds before going to visit Agent C the Principle Office.' The doctor gave Matrix a knowing look. 'I'm sure you can guess what happened next.'

Matrix did not reply. Fred looked at the greasy residue on the carpet. 'He finally got what he wanted.'

'I hate to say this Fred, but Zenna did this to herself. She chose to completely drain herself and what I deleted was a belligerent virus who I think would have taken over this whole system given half a chance.'

'You really think so?'

Matrix nodded. 'Look,' he said, parting his hair to reveal a cluster of small cuts where Zenna had got her claws into him. 'I couldn't tell if she was trying to infect me, drain my energy or just mess with my head, but whatever she was up to, it wasn't benign.'

Fred's knees gave way beneath him and he sat heavily on one of the damp sofas with a squelch, gripping the bonnet until his knuckles showed white as he tried to keep his emotions under control. 'My Zenna was different,' Fred mumbled. 'She was special. Now she's gone'

Irritated by the guardian's display of grief, Matrix stood in front of him with his arms folded across his massive chest. 'What are you going to do next?' he asked bluntly.

'Um… I will have to cancel the appointments I'd booked,' Fred sniffed and hastily wiped the corner of his eye with his thumb. Matrix resisted the urge to swipe him across the face with back of his hand and tear him a new serial port for getting so upset over a virus. Fred was still a guardian, after all.

'That's not what I mean,' he said bluntly. 'I gave Zenna a job to do.'

Fred looked up. 'You mean Agent C's training camps?'

Matrix nodded. 'Don't you think it would be the perfect way for you to get your own back?'

'None of this would have happened if he hadn't lied to you,' Fred said grimly. 'I won't let Zenna's death be in vain.' he stood up to face Matrix and double-tapped his icon to change into the standard guardian uniform. 'I took an oath to Mend and Defend and that includes defending the citizens of this system from their own CommandCom, if necessary.'

'I'd say it's necessary right now.'

'I failed Zenna, but I won't fail anyone else.' Fred vowed. 'I'll see you in the next game cube.'

Matrix nodded and turned to go, but his exit was blocked by four hospital porters pulling a wheeled trolley carrying a sprite covered in a pale turquoise blanket. He sneaked a look at the patient and his blood ran cold.

It was AndrAIa, badly beaten and unconscious.

Matrix scooped AndrAIa up from the trolley and cradled her injured head with one hand, leaving her arms dangling like those of a discarded marionette. Frisket bounded out from his hiding place underneath the mattress and nosed the game sprite's hand, whining softly as he did so.

'We're sorry about the dog,' one of the porters apologised. 'We'll have him taken out now.'

Frisket snarled.

Fred waved his hand dismissively. 'We'll be fine, just leave him here.'

The doctor guided Matrix by the elbow into the delivery room, sweeping the blankets and pillows from Zenna's bed onto the floor, standing back to allow his patient to be placed gently on the gritty mattress. Fred attached the unresponsive sprite to the energy transfer unit, turning the flow down from eleven, then watched as her colour improved and her breathing settled. She looked as if she was sleeping.

'Who did this to you, Andi?' Matrix asked, but there was no response. 'Why hasn't she woken up?'

'This is the work of the Juvenile Retrieval Team,' Fred said grimly.

'With a name like that, they sound like they go around taking children away from their families… wait… where's Pixie?'

Fred pulled a trolley full of equipment that could have come from the sick bay of the starship Enterprise to the bedside. 'Pixie will be fine. They never hurt the children – it's the parents they go after.' The doctor opened a box of dressings and selected one of the largest to apply over AndrAIa's forehead and left temple.

Reassured that his lover was in good hands, Matrix returned to the seat where he had watched the dawn break with Zenna Prime. 'If I'd been there, they would never have done this to AndrAIa.' He admitted, then looked up suddenly. 'That was why Agent C called me – to get me out of the way so he could get Pixie!'

The doctor did not respond to the last comment, instead looking solemnly at the readout from a scanner that he had applied to the top of AndrAIa's head.

'What is is Fred?' Matrix asked. 'She's going to be okay, right?'

Fred shook his head a little. 'It looks bad,' he said. 'Very bad.'

'How bad?'

'They've completely wiped her volatile memory. Even if she did wake up, she wouldn't know who she was, let alone you.'

'And Pixie?'

'She wouldn't even know she exists. It's how they work – they make the parents forget about their own children if they break the rules.'

Matrix was baffled. 'So how does anyone function if their minds have been wiped?'

'Zenna used to keep backups of everyone's mind and restore them as required, just leaving out the memories of their children.' Fred opened one of the many cupboards in the delivery room, revealing a fridge full of unlabelled cardboard boxes. He lifted one from the bottom shelf and opened the lid, allowing Matrix to peer inside. 'She found this to be the best way.'

It was full of potatoes.

'Do any of these look like they might belong to AndrAIa?' Fred asked. 'You know her better than anyone.'

Matrix opened his mouth in a vain attempt to say something, but his brain was completely unable to form a coherent sentence when faced with a box of vegetables.

'Zenna would have known,' Fred said sadly and replaced the lid on the box.

Annoyed at yet another reference to the deceased virus, Matrix remembered something. 'What about that portable storage device you gave us? Wouldn't that still have a copy of AndrAIa's memory on it?'

'Matrix, you're a genius!' Fred cried, grabbing the renegade's head in both hands and planting a kiss on his forehead. 'Now where did I put it…?' the doctor patted his sides and thighs, 'Hmm, no pockets in this thing...' he double tapped his icon and his white lab coat reappeared over his uniform. The storage unit was in the left pocket and Fred confirmed that it was operational.

'How long will it take?'

'Long enough for you to find your daughter.'

'Do you have any idea where she will be?'

Fred checked his watch. 'At this time of the morning, she will be in the Principle Office.'

Matrix did not need telling twice and headed for the door.

'Look after her.' The doctor called after him.

…

Agent C sat with Pixie in the gleaming whiteness of the static analysis room on the fourteenth floor of the Principle Office, studying the results of the code review he had performed on the sprite. He looked as composed as always, despite the fourth cup of coffee that cooled on the table in front of him. Opposite, Pixie looked dishevelled and defiant, with two of her four hair bobbles pulled out and arms folded carefully to avoid getting any ointment from her scuffed knuckles onto her clothes.

'I suppose your parents told you how special you are,' he said derisively.

'Of course they did.' Pixie replied, not taking her eyes off the CommandCom. She could not remember either of them actually using those words, but she was not going to tell him that.

The CommandCom put the VidWindow down. 'The difference is, your parents are right,' he said. 'Looking at your codebase, I can see that you are a very special sprite.'

'What do you mean? Have I got superpowers or something?'

He smiled condescendingly. 'You have a vast amount of potential. You could be anything you want.'

'Even a guardian?'

Agent C leaned closer. 'In time, you could be the Prime Guardian.'

Pixie's violet eyes widened. 'Really?'

The older sprite nodded. 'If you choose to pursue a civilian path, you could be the CommandCom of a system. Maybe even the Super Computer.'

At the mention of the Super Computer, Pixie's face lit up and her mouth opened in a wide, dreamlike smile. 'I could run the Super Computer?'

'Absolutely,' C nodded, pleased at having found the sprite's weak spot. 'I'm not just forward declaring this, I mean it. Your parents have both got excellent codebases and the virus cross-compiled them to develop you.' He pointed at sections of code on the VidWindow. 'You've got strength, determination and belligerence from your father and adaptive intelligence from your mother. You've also got an underlying thread of pragmatism in there from somewhere, too.'

'That will be from my Auntie Dot,' Pixie pointed out proudly. 'I can't wait to meet her when I get to Mainframe.'

Agent C looked disappointed. 'Ah yes. Mainframe. An isolated backwater with ideas above it's station. I will not even try to understand why your parents want to go back there so desperately, there's probably not even much left of it by now with two viruses and no guardian.'

'It's our home.' Pixie stated firmly.

'But you were born here,' C pointed out. 'Your parents should have known that you were going to be staying here rather than filling your head with daydreams.'

'It was Zenna who filled my mind.' Trixie retorted.

'You remember Zenna,' Agent C mused. 'That is interesting.'

'Memories are all that are left of her now.' Matrix announced, having suddenly appeared in the doorway with Frisket standing next to him.

Agent C spun around with such speed that his dark glasses flew off his face and clattered across the floor, coming to rest half a step away from Matrix's boot. He lifted his foot as if to crush them, but thought better of it and picked them up instead, placing them on the table in front of the CommandCom, who snatched them up and put them back on.

'Mr Matrix,' he choked, shuffling his chair further away. 'What a nice surprise to see you here.'

'I've come to take back the child you have stolen.'

'Daddy!' Pixie shouted, standing up in her chair, running across the table and launching herself at her father, who deftly caught her. 'Me and Mum were looking at spreadsheets when the door was broken down and all these sprites in black padded jackets broke in and we tried to fight them off but one of them hit mum on the head so hard that she just logged out in front of me so I gave him what for but they took the hammer off me and put me in the back of a van to bring me here so I don't know what happened to Mum after that and Dad I know you're getting upset but could you please stop squeezing me because it's starting to hurt now.'

'Sorry, I didn't realise,' Matrix apologised, putting Pixie down. 'Mum will be fine, she's with the doctor and he's fixing her up as we speak.'

Agent C looked confused. 'But you have deleted the only person in the system who can do that.'

'I wouldn't have gone there if you hadn't asked me to, but you just wanted me out of the way so you could break up my family, didn't you?' Matrix replied, leaning menacingly towards the CommandCom. 'Anyway, Fred is a guardian and you should never underestimate a guardian.'

'With all due respect,' Agent C said with a small nod, 'I have known Fred a lot longer than you and I have learned to manage my expectations where he is concerned.'

'Someone's got a deletion wish...' Pixie said.

The smiled unsettlingly at the two sprites. 'No, I do not have a deletion wish,' he informed them. 'What I do have is a private army who will rush to my aid at the click of a button.'

Agent C pushed the sleeve of his jacket up to reveal a small console on a wristband. He pressed a button and sat back with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

There was a polite knock at the door.

'Enter!' Agent C barked triumphantly.

Matrix drew Gun, ready to delete the first person that stepped through the door, then noticed that Frisket was standing happy and relaxed at his side and thought it prudent to wait and see who it was before opening fire.

The door opened and Fred walked through, closely followed by AndrAIa who was completely back to normal and slightly surprised to see Pixie. 'Who...' she began, but was cut off by the small sprite.

'Hi Mum!'

AndrAIa stopped short and looked quizzically at the little sprite.

'I'll tell you later.' Matrix said, hugging his partner.

Suddenly a Klaxon blared over the system's public address system.

'What the Helvetica is that?' the doctor shouted.

'It's the early warning system for games!' Matrix said. 'They managed to get it working, so that means it's time for us to get out of here.'

'Agent C,' Fred began. 'I am hereby suspending you from your post of and putting you under arrest for abuse of power.' He retrieved a set of handcuffs from his belt and secured the sprite to the chair. 'I will deal with you after the game, but first I have to do this...'

He doctor unpinned first his own, then Agent C's icons and transferred the privileges to himself, then reattached them both to their respective owners, before turning and walking out of the room.

'Fred!' C bellowed. 'Fred! You won't get away with this! Security! Security! Stop them!'

'I'm sorry, Cuthbert,' came the reply through the VidWindow. 'I can't do that.'

'Why not? I'm the CommandCom!'

'Not any more.'

…

Fred hurried after Matrix and AndrAIa, diving into the lift with them just as the doors were closing.

'We'll take Agent C's car,' the doctor told them, resetting the lift controls to send them up to the roof.

'You're going to fight in a game?' Pixie asked incredulously, conceding the front seat to Frisket and joining Matrix in the back, wedging herself between her parents.

'Of course I am,' Fred replied with a wry smile. 'I am a guardian you know!'

'Could've fooled me,' Pixie muttered, but was drowned out by the engine of Agent C's car noisily revving as they gained altitude and accelerated towards the space beneath the black void in the distorted purple firmament.

The normally tranquil waters of the Memory Pool came into view past a row of tall apartment buildings, apparently situated to make the most of the pleasant vista which was currently overshadowed with the ominous violet of the incoming game.

'You can see my house from here,' Fred said conversationally, putting the car into a steep dive as they raced the descending cube. The double-fronted cottage had a thatched roof, roses around the door and a small phishing boat moored to a jetty just outside the picket fenced front garden.

Matrix leaned over for a closer look. It was the Mary Sue – the boat that Zenna's elder sister Ideal Diode had used to travel to Mainframe and then depart to the Super Computer. It looked in remarkably good condition for its age, but he did not get long to examine the craft as the car skimmed underneath the outer wall of the game cube which docked on the shore of the Memory Pool. As the last forks of energy crackled over the surface of the monolith, the water settled and reflected the calm blue sky while the sprites within faced the challenges set before them by the User.


	9. 1001 - A Guardian Alliance

**Chapter Nine: A Guardian Alliance**

Inside the game, a breeze rippled through the rust coloured leaves of the trees that surrounded the forest clearing. A thin layer of fallen vegetation lay on top of the trampled earth and the remains of a campfire surrounded by a circle of logs filled the air with the acrid smell of woodsmoke and burned meat. Thick cloud obscured the sun but the sky promised no rain, only an unrelenting mist that afforded a limited view further into the damp woodland.

'Looks like winter is coming.' Matrix remarked, unclipping Glitch from his belt as he checked the game stats. 'This is pretty straightforward – first one to sit on the Seat of Swords wins.'

'How can you read that?' Fred asked peering at the ruined screen.

'You get used to it. Your brain does the translating,' Matrix said, stashing Glitch. 'Alright, people, time to reboot!'

The group of four gave the command and stood still as they transformed into game characters. Matrix found himself wrapped in a heavy, fur-collared greatcoat and equipped with a reassuringly large sword. A white wolf with long shaggy fur stood next to him. 'You've got long hair this time too, huh?' he said, reaching out to scratch the animal's ears.

'That's not Frisket,' AndrAIa pointed out, having rebooted into a regal vision in white with a jewelled silver tiara adorning her head. 'That's Frisket.'

Matrix followed AndrAIa's outstretched finger and looked behind him to see a powerfully built red dragon with gold markings stretching his wings as if he has never used them before. 'Yeah, I think you're right,' he agreed. 'Where are...'

'Daddy!' Pixie called, running across the clearing and launching herself at her father, who caught her with one arm. 'Look! I've got a sword too!' She was dressed in a dark brown leather short jacket, fastened with a sturdy belt, from which hung the scabbard of her short, slim blade. Thickly woven trousers and small but robust boots completed her outfit.

Recoiling from the swinging blade, Matrix took hold of his daughter's hand and held it still. 'Watch what you're doing with that thing!' he scolded. 'Don't you have the sense you were deployed with?'

'You could have someone's eye out with that,' Fred remarked, making his satin-attired presence known. Matrix glared wordlessly at the doctor and put Pixie down, who sheathed her weapon and ran off to where her mother was investigating further into the woodland, having found a spot where the terrain rose up a little. 'I'm sorry, that was insensitive,' Fred apologised, then produced a folded sheet of parchment from a voluminous sleeve and handed it to Matrix. 'I found this pinned to a tree.'

The renegade unfolded the parchment, turned it the right way up and looked closely at the contents. It was a "Wanted" poster, depicting the four sprites and Frisket in his dragon form. 'Looks like we're famous,' he remarked, handing it back to Fred.

Fred took the poster back and looked at it again, feeling his own nose to make sure a prominent bump had not appeared when he rebooted into character. 'They didn't get my nose right.'

'We've got company!' AndrAIa called out, looking down at a wide road where a procession of characters travelled carrying richly embroidered banners depicting an elegant black swan on a pristine white field.

'Is that the User?' Pixie asked quietly, pointing to a female with a waist length mane of golden curly hair, swathed in red velvet and mounted on a chestnut brown horse. AndrAIa nodded.

'One of us has to sit on the Seat of Swords before she does,' the game sprite explained.

'Where is it?' the little sprite asked. 'Is it in a castle, or something?'

'It's over there,' Matrix said, pointing to a turreted carbuncle perched on top of a hill.

'Pardon me for asking a silly question,' Pixie began. 'But why can't we just fly there on the dragon?'

'Frisket can't fly yet,' Matrix explained. 'He will need to go to the limestone cliffs first, then he will catch us up, probably when we get to the last level.'

'What's the last level?'

'That's in the throne room in the centre of the castle.'

Pixie thought about this. 'Why don't we finish the game before the User gets that far?'

Matrix smiled approvingly. 'That is not a silly question.'

Fred appeared behind the renegade and clapped his hand on his shoulder, making him jump. 'I've got an idea,' he said quietly in his ear, and indicated towards a ramshackle farm. 'This way.'

'Come on, Pansy,' AndrAIa said, turning to follow Matrix. 'Let's see what Fred has thought of that we haven't.'

Pixie did not move. 'Um… I'm not called that,' she said quietly. 'My name is Pixie. Pixie Matrix.'

AndrAIa looked confused. 'Oh… okay...'

'I decided to change it just after I was deployed,' the little sprite said, then noticing the disappointment on her mother's face, she quickly added: 'Pansy is a pretty name, though. Like the flower.'

'I suppose you are big enough to have some input into your own name,' AndrAIa conceded.

Pixie grinned at her mother. 'That's exactly what I said.'

…

A little further along the highway, the User and her entourage continued at a steady pace, hitherto unmolested by any characters in the game. As they rounded the next corner, one of the scouts gave a shout and pointed up the bracken-covered bank where a burning hay cart was rolling down the hill towards the head of the procession.

'Turn back!' the User commanded, but a second burning hay cart rolled into the road behind them, trapping them on the road, hemmed in by high banks on both sides.

'There goes the User!' Pixie called out from a vantage point near the top of a tree whose leaves had nearly all been shed. 'She's climbed up the opposite bank with about half a dozen of her group and one donkey to carry all their kit.'

'What about the rest of them?' Matrix called up.

'Toast.' Pixie grinned, 'Allons-y!' she cried, leaping out of the tree to where she knew her father would catch her.

'Your plan bought us some time, Fred,' Matrix called out to the guardian, who was standing with three horses, saddled and ready, and a unicorn that he had befrended much to Matrix's surprise. 'Let's head across country and make up some ground before they regroup.'

'We might do that the next time we play this game,' AndrAIa said as her shimmering unicorn drew alongside her partner's imposing black destrier. 'But I don't understand how Fred thought of it so quickly.'

'It doesn't seem like he's been in a game for a while,' Pixie suggested. 'He does seem out of shape.'

Matrix looked carefully at the small, dappled grey pony that Fred had prepared for Pixie. 'I hope your animal is up to the journey.'

'Of course she is,' Pixie smiled, leaning forward to pat her pony's neck and smooth her blonde mane. 'You'll be fine, won't you Muffins?'

'Muffins?' AndrAIa questioned.

'Yeah, cute huh?' Pixie replied, grinning. 'And if it turns out that she's not up to it, I'm sure Dad knows how to make lasagne.'1

Matrix and AndrAIa stared in stunned silence at their offspring, who urged her pony into a canter and took the lead on the poorly defined forest track.

'She worries me.' AndrAIa stated.

'Me too,' Matrix agreed. 'There's a reason Dot never let me into the Diner's kitchen.'

'Pixie! Not too far!' AndrAIa called out, suddenly aware that she could no longer see the little sprite. 'There are...'

A lone wolf howled, cutting off the rest of her sentence. The call was swiftly followed by the soft sound of several sets of large paws running through the woods ahead of the group and then the truncated scream of a terrified horse.

Matrix cursed under his breath and dug his heels into the flanks of his mount. His horse got the message and launched into a higher gear, charging through the undergrowth and bursting into another clearing, much larger than the first and containing the charred remains of a long since plundered woodcutter's dwelling. He rounded the corner and found Pixie standing on a crumbling windowsill, fending off three monstrously huge grey wolves with deft movements of her sword. She had already despatched one, but two others were terrorizing her pony, who had somehow managed to climb a tree.

'That doesn't normally happen,' Matrix remarked to himself, steadying his horse.

'Dad!' Pixie called out. 'I found a whole pile of axes in this shed but all the handles were burned so I decided not to collect them and go back to tell you what I had found but then these wolves turned up and attacked Muffins so I had to fight them off myself but this windowsill is cracking and I could really use some help right now!'

Matrix did not reply, but instead urged his mount forwards through the gap between his daughter and the wolves, scooping her off the windowsill and into the saddle in front of him as he passed and galloped deep into the forest, urging his horse to go faster and outrun the pursuing pack. Side shoots of branches whipped against his face and shoulders and he ducked around larger branches, while simultaneously keeping Pixie from slipping off the saddle and into the jaws of the wolves. A pale, mottled grey animal led the chase, drawing level with the renegade's right boot. Pixie drew breath to cry out a warning, but her father slipped his foot out of the stirrup and dealt the game artefact a devastatingly accurate kick, ending it's participation in the game and scattering the remnants of the pack. The little sprite noticed that her father had not even glanced down once, either at the wolves or her. Matrix slackened the pace to a canter and started looking around for a trail to follow. He had played this game many times before and rarely got lost. There was a clearing with a stream nearby and he headed straight for it, dismounting and leading his horse to the water.

Pixie knelt to refill her water bottle alongside Matrix. 'Thanks for saving me, back there.'

'You shouldn't put yourself in positions where you need saving,' he said. 'It takes up valuable time and puts everyone else in the game at risk too.'

Pixie looked shamefaced. 'Are you angry?'

'Yes.'

'With me?'

Matrix sat back on his heels and silently counted to ten. 'Are you trying to make me lose my temper?'

'I made one mistake!' Pixie snapped back. 'If you can't deal with that, I might as well stay in this system until they reopen the ports to the Super Computer and get back to Mainframe that way!' She jumped to her feet, slung her water bottle over her shoulder and stormed off towards the forest.

Enraged, Matrix leaped to his feet, caught up with his daughter and picked her up by the shoulders. 'Don't you dare even think about going off on your own!' he roared.

'I am not your possession!' The little sprite shouted back. 'I didn't ask to be deployed!'

'What did you just say?'

Pixie glared at her father. 'You heard me.'

The trees at the northern edge of the clearing parted and AndrAIa arrived on her shimmering unicorn, closely followed by Fred. She stopped suddenly, shocked at the sight that greeted her and Fred's horse crashed into the back of AndrAIa's mount.

'Enzo!' she scolded. 'What are you doing? We heard the shouting and thought something bad had happened to Pixie.'

Matrix sighed heavily and lowered Pixie to the ground. 'It nearly did.' he said grimly, watching the little sprite rotate each shoulder in turn and retreat to her mother's side.

'Dad saved me from the wolves,' Pixie admitted.

'Well done, Matrix,' Fred interjected.

'Don't you "well done" me,' Matrix growled at the doctor, then turned to AndrAIa looking up to her elevated position. 'This is why I didn't want to start a family until we got back to Mainframe,' he said, then pointed directly at Fred. 'This is all your fault for dragging us into your twisted plan.'

Fred blinked back, stunned. 'None of my patients have ever blamed me before.'

'First time for everything,' the renegade muttered. 'Now just stay out of trouble while I go and win this game.' He swung his massive frame astride his equally massive horse and set off in the direction of the castle as a brisk canter, his greatcoat billowing out behind him.

As soon as he was sure Matrix was out of earshot, Fred turned to AndrAIa and asked; 'Is he always like that?'

'He's fine,' the game sprite said dismissively. 'He's just got very little patience when it comes to playing around in games.'

Sheepishly, Pixie accepted her mother's outstretched hand and climbed onto the back of her unicorn, sitting pillion while holding on tightly around her slender waist.

The trio left the cover of the trees and continued at a smart pace while Fred scanned the sky for any sign of Frisket. Pixie was the first to speak.

'Mum?' she began, 'I want you do know that I don't blame you for not stopping them from kidnapping me,' she said. 'I'm sorry I had a go at you for giving away all your best moves, there were so many of them, you wouldn't have stood a chance.'

AndrAIa looked as far around as she dared without slipping from the sidesaddle posture her flowing dress necessitated. 'I don't remember any of that,' she admitted.

'You don't?' Pixie asked, startled. 'What's the last thing you do remember?'

'I remember using the portable storage device while your father and I were still in the flat, then nothing until I woke up in the delivery room.' she said quietly. 'It was just me and the doctor, but no baby. I knew I had given birth because everything hurt, so I couldn't understand where you were.'

Fred looked over knowingly. 'You got quite upset at that point.'

'I might have threatened him a bit with my trident,' AndrAIa admitted. 'But don't worry Pixie, I'm not like your father.'

Pixie looked puzzled. 'Why would that be a bad thing?' she asked. 'Dad's brilliant. I want to be just like him when I'm older.'

'You remind me of Zenna,' Fred remarked quietly.

AndrAIa looked puzzled. 'Who's Zenna?'

'She was my assistant,' Fred said bitterly. 'Until Matrix killed her.'

'Why would he do that?' the game sprite gasped. 'He's got a short temper, but he doesn't go around randomly deleting sprites.'

Pixie leaped to her father's defence. 'He deleted Zenna because she was a Class Five virus that attacked the and was planning to take over the system before moving on to the Super Computer.'

AndrAIa looked over sharply. 'Did you just compare my daughter to a virus?' she said. 'Do yourself a favour and never let Matrix hear you saying that.'

Fred looked concerned. 'Do you expect Pixie to be able to walk on eggshells around him as well as you do?'

'It's not about walking on eggshells,' AndrAIa replied defensively. 'It's about not deliberately upsetting the man I love by saying random things.'

Unconvinced, the doctor drew his horse alongside AndrAIa's unicorn. 'I'm just saying that Matrix might not yet have the emotional resilience to be a good father, yet. Maybe it would be better if you stayed in this system while you all get to know each other a bit better.'

'Mum and I already talked about this,' Pixie argued. 'We decided that we're all going to go back to Mainframe together.'

'Well done, Pixie,' AndrAIa said quietly, then added. 'I'm sorry I don't remember anything at all about your deployment, or spending any time with you at all.'

'Try not to worry about it too much,' the little sprite reminded her. 'We're together again now and we can make new memories, can't we?'

The game sprite smiled warmly. 'Let's make sure they're good ones.'

The moment was broken by Fred, who had noticed a red speck in the sky that got larger and closer. 'Hey, AndrAIa! Is that Frisket?'

AndrAIa stopped her unicorn and turned to look at the sky. 'Indeed it is.' She dismounted the animal and stood with arms outstretched as dragon-Frisket swooped closer. 'I'll see you at the castle!' she called out as she caught hold of Frisket's collar and swung herself onto his back.

Fred and Pixie watched them soar into the sky.

'When are you going to tell her that your surrogate mother was a virus?' Fred asked.

Pixie glared at him. 'Never.'

…

Alone, Matrix covered a significant amount of ground and the castle soon came into view again as the trees thinned out. From the east, a pall of smoke rose where the User and her entourage had taken the option of plundering a wealthy smallholder, taking the horses and burning the rest to the ground. He could usually tell what the User's next move would be according to their choice of action in games like this, so he was prepared for a brutal ambush when he finally broke through into clear ground.

He did not get that far.

With about two lengths to go on the forest track, a rope suddenly dropped from the tree canopy and pulled taut at the level of his chest. Unable to stop in time, Matrix crashed into it, cartwheeling backwards off his horse and landing on his shoulder on the muddy track, the leaf litter breaking his fall. Four game sprites immediately surrounded him, swords drawn and ready to attack.

One of them, dressed in a dark green jerkin with faded embroidery at the hem, indicated to the rest of the group to hold off their attack. 'You've been here before,' he said, examining the renegade's face as he got to his feet. 'You must really enjoy playing games.'

'Not any more,' he said. 'I just want to get them over with as quickly as possible.'

'Today is your lucky day,' the sprite grinned. 'At the speed the User is going, the game will be over in no time.' He stood aside, allowing Matrix a clear view of the meadow beyond the forest. The early mist had lifted and glorious sunshine lit up the scenery, picking out the jewel like colours of the late season wildflowers and the rich auburn tones of the User's flaxen hair as she galloped towards the castle on Matrix's huge black war horse leaving him hopelessly behind with no prospect of catching up.

1

wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal


	10. 1010 - Playing for Keeps

**Chapter Ten: Playing for Keeps**

Unencumbered by opponents, the User's avatar pounded across the turf, aiming straight for the waypoint marker that rotated slowly above the wooden drawbridge that formed the entrance to the final level of the game. A speck in the sky grew and took the form of a red and gold dragon that swooped low over the User and belched flame directly at the platform, incinerating it, forcing the User into a skidding halt.

'Well done Frisket!' AndrAIa cheered, reaching forward to thump the transformed animal on his scaly neck. Looking down, she saw Matrix running full-tilt towards the castle and paused to watch. He had discarded his greatcoat, choosing to continue the game sleeveless, but this was not unusual. Frisket wheeled around and flew low over the ground alongside his long time companion.

'Where's Pixie?' Matrix called out.

'She's with Fred, catching us up. Come on, let's head for the roof.'

Before he could protest, Frisket reached his head out and picked Matrix up by the back of his chain mail vest, lifting him high up in the air as they soared towards the castle. 'I wish you wouldn't do this!' he called out over his shoulder. 'It's humiliating.'

'Oh, come on Sparky,' AndrAIa replied. 'Everyone deserves the chance to fly.'

Matrix sighed and surveyed the ground beneath his feet, looking for Fred and Pixie. He saw them underneath a sturdy oak tree at the edge of the moat constructing a rudimentary rope swing while the exhausted unicorn panted nearby. 'There they are!' he shouted, pointing the pair out. Frisket duly swooped down and released the renegade, who hit the ground and tumbled once before getting back on his feet in one slick move.

The doctor turned around and scowled. 'Nice of you to drop in,' he called across the water. He held the rope taut while Pixie took a firm hold, pausing before pushing her towards her father. 'Are you sure you will be okay with him?' he asked the small sprite. She glared sharply at the doctor.

'Of course I am!' she snapped back. Fred was not convinced and pointed out the way he had manhandled her in the clearing previously. 'That was my own fault,' Pixie confessed. 'I had said some horrible things to him and I need to apologise before this game finishes or things will get awkward.'

'You don't have to go with them,' the doctor said. 'You could easily stay in this system with all the other sprites that Zenna spawned. You would be safe, learning the skills to be a guardian in a structured way rather than by game hopping. Look what it's done to your father – you don't want to turn out like him, do you?'

Pixie set her jaw firmly. 'I think he's brilliant,' she said defiantly. Fred pressed on.

'I've analysed your codebase and you could be anything you want to be. You have the potential not just to be a guardian, but the Prime Guardian. Or, if not, you could be of a system, possibly the Super Computer!'

Unmoved by the doctor's flight of fancy, Pixie looked him steadily in the eye and said; 'What I want to be is Pixie Matrix, daughter of AndrAIa and Enzo Matrix, and resident of Mainframe.'

'Have it your way,' the doctor sighed theatrically and let go of the rope.

The small sprite swung towards the castle, letting go suddenly and launching herself at Matrix's broad chest. Her faith in him was well placed and he caught her.

'I'm sorry I said those things to you earlier, Dad,' Pixie apologised.

Matrix's expression softened a little. 'I'm sorry too. I'm not doing a very good job of this parenting thing, am I?'

'I'm not so sure about that,' the little sprite said. 'You're certainly the best dad I've ever had.'

Fred swung himself across the moat on the rope, letting go in the same way as Pixie, but Matrix was not there to catch him and he landed heavily on the stony bank. Glancing behind him, the renegade looked at the doctor in this torn satin outfit, then up at the castle wall. 'How good are you at climbing?' he asked his daughter.

'I've never tried,' she shrugged, then grinned. 'Let's find out!'

Matrix let Pixie go and watched her rapidly scale the intricate brickwork, displaying a latent talent for climbing. He turned to Fred who was also watching the small sprite with interest. Too much interest for the renegade's liking. 'We need to start making our way to the throne room from the inside of the castle,' he called out.

'We've got all three entrances covered now, haven't we?' Fred asked.

We? Matrix thought to himself, but let it slide. He unsheathed his massive broadsword and brandished it in front of him as he let the way in to the entrance hall of the castle. At first glance, it looked empty, but right on cue the rows of suits of armour that flanked the cavernous room clanked into life and turned to face the newcomers, surrounding them in a tight semicircle of plate metal and pointy weaponry. Matrix charged at the apex of the arrangement and reduced one suit after another to scrap metal. Fred took a different approach and aimed for the left most suit, using a mace he had plucked from the wall to remove its right leg and topple it against its neighbour.

The whole row fell like dominoes and vanished.

Matrix half-turned to Fred and acknowledged this move with an almost imperceptibly tiny nod before running towards the broad central staircase.

'Matrix, no!' Fred called out. 'This way!'

The renegade skidded to a halt as Fred pulled a torch bracket downwards, revealing a slim door that opened onto a spiral staircase. 'This leads straight to the throne room, but we need to close it behind us or the User will follow.'

'How come I've never noticed this door?' Matrix questioned. 'AndrAIa and I have won this game at least a dozen times.'

'It's the way we deal with games in this system,' Fred explained as he ascended the anti-clockwise staircase holding the flaming torch in front of the pair. 'Normally, when a game cube drops, we send in two teams of four, one team to actively fight the game and the other team focuses on reconnaissance. As games get more complex, we need the extra knowledge and sometimes we do need all eight to win a game.'

One instance of this loomed large in Matrix's mind and he hoped the doctor would stop talking. The torchlight illuminated Fred's sympathetic expression as he tried one last time to persuade Matrix to stay in the system.

'You didn't stand a .tmp file in the Recycle Bin's chance in that game with only two of you,' he said quietly. 'But you've fought back and conquered game after game. Don't you see what an inspiration you are?'

'I don't want to inspire anyone.'

'Not even Pixie?'

Matrix growled audibly. 'Just keep walking.'

'I'm just saying,' Fred shrugged. He continued up the stairs and drew his viciously curved, bone handled dagger, holding it in his left hand, anticipating the next batch of aggressive game sprites. He was not a moment too soon and the metal studded door at the top of the staircase burst open in a shower of splinters, closely followed by four castle guards, partially clad in dented armour.

The first one lunged at Fred, who reacted instantly with his weapon and deleted the game sprite. He then ducked underneath the next three and emerged into the throne room, leaving Matrix to deal with the guards. Judging by his language, he was not impressed by course of action but that was none of the doctor's concern. His goal lay on the far side of the room – an imposing throne, constructed entirely of reclaimed swords salvaged from the smouldering battlefields of the backstory. It stood on a dais with four steps leading up to it, although the last one seemed unfinished, and was flanked with pennants that bore the insignia of a red dragon leaping triumphantly from a blue-green sea, breathing fire as it did so. A window with a stony skull above it illuminated the room from behind. The doctor has not taken two steps towards it when the heavy oak double doors crashed open and the User stumbled in backwards, parrying a barrage of blows from AndrAIa's sword. Matrix dispatched the last of the game sprites and noticed a shadow darken the window behind the throne before the glass shattered.

It was Pixie.

She was closer than anyone else to the Seat of Swords.

Her icon was in game sprite mode, ready to leave with the game.

'Hi mum!' she called out, drawing AndrAIa's attention for a mere moment, but it was long enough for the User to break free of the onslaught and charge at the small sprite, knocking Fred aside as she did so. Matrix was too far away to intervene and could only watch as his daughter was pushed backwards out of the window, letting out a truncated scream as she fell.

'Pixie! No!' he roared, then threw his sword at the User, who ducked low. So low that a small green hand emerged above the level of the windowsill, grabbed the User's flowing hair and pulled her into the void.

Matrix hurried to the window and looked down. Pixie grinned back up at him, holding tightly to a gargoyle. The huge sprite hauled his offspring inside and hugged her tightly. 'I thought I'd lost you,' he said quietly.

'You won't get rid of me that easily,' she winked.

'What about the User?' Fred asked frantically. 'They're going to respawn any moment!'

'No they won't,' Pixie replied, before launching into another monologue as Matrix put her down. 'I knew the User would push me out of the window so I made sure she saw me and I had something to hang on to while I pulled her out after me and I made sure there was a balcony only two floors below so she would not pick up enough damage to be deleted so she would not respawn in the throne room with us and has to battle through the castle all over again!'

Matrix bent low to address his daughter. 'Clever girl!' he said in her ear.

'I think we should let Pixie finish this game off,' AndrAIa suggested. 'It is her first one.'

Fred already had one foot on the dais as he held out his hand to help the small sprite up the steps. He turned to the Mainframers. 'I'm surprised how much I've learned from you two today.'

Matrix frowned quizzically. 'Why is that a surprise? I thought the only one doing any learning today would be Pixie.'

Fred looked directly at the renegade, confident that he was too far away to intervene, and shook his head sadly. 'You know nothing, Enzo Matrix.' He reached down to Pixie's icon and double tapped it, switching it out of game sprite mode before sitting on the Seat of Swords himself.

GAME OVER


	11. 1011 - Unfinished Business

**Chapter 11: Unfinished Business**

As the game cube lifted, Pixie stared open-mouthed at Fred. She had been so caught up in the excitement of winning her first game that she had not noticed what he was doing until it was too late to react and she now found herself standing on a grassy slope near the edge of the Memory Pool, not far from Fred's cottage, rather than back at the start of the game where she had expected to be. Fred himself had landed in the water, still in a seated position, and was now soaking wet from the waist down.

'Why did you change my icon back?' Pixie shouted, furious at the sodden saboteur. 'I wanted to go back to Mainframe!'

The doctor sploshed his way back to dry land and placed a gentle hand on the small sprite's shoulder. 'I'm sorry I had to do that,' he said. 'I would really have preferred it if they had stayed too, but I just couldn't persuade them, especially Matrix. He is so single-minded, I was worried how safe you would be with him.'

Pixie shook the doctor's hand off her shoulder. 'Of course I was safe with him! He's my father!' she argued. 'As soon as the ports to the Net open again, I'm leaving this rotten system and going home.'

Fred squatted down to the little sprite's eye level. 'Pixie, I know what it's like to want to go home, but not be able to,' he said empathetically. 'I have really missed the Super Computer while I have been isolated in this system to work on this project, but sometimes you need to look at the bigger picture.' Unable to resist pushing his agenda, Fred approached Pixie with an idea. 'Would you consider joining the training scheme while you're here?' He asked. 'Just think how proud your father would be when he sees what you've learned.'

'Absolutely no way.' Pixie replied bluntly. 'Throwing my chips I with you is the last thing my father would want for me.'

Fred opened his mouth to speak again, but Pixie cut him off, having lost patience with his smooth words and empty promises. 'I know I remind you of Zenna, but I'm not going to be your replacement for her. I owe you nothing.'

'I'm quite disappointed that you feel that way,' Fred said. 'I won't take it personally and if you change your mind, then my door is always open,' he paused, then muttered. 'Mainly because Matrix kicked it off the hinges.'

'Speaking of kicking things off the hinges...' Pixie smirked, placing her hands on her hips as she faced out across the Memory Pool. 'We've got company.'

'How..? Who..?' Fred spluttered, watching as an orange flame burned a hole in one of the green triangles that bordered the system and the gap was filled with a portal to the Super Computer. The sole person to cross the boundary was a female guardian with lilac skin, pewter coloured hair in a severe ponytail at the nape of her neck and piercing, pale blue eyes. She wore what looked like it had originally been a standard guardian uniform, but was now completely black, except her icon, which was covered in a network of pulsating green threads. She steered her zip-board directly towards Fred, her expression a picture of grim determination.

'She looks exactly like Zenna!' Pixie blurted out, 'Except she's got a face like a slapped bitmap.'

'This guardian is Ideal Diode,' Fred explained. 'Zenna was her sister.'

'Ohh dear...' Pixie breathed and stepped quietly in the direction of the Mary Sue.

'Guardian Fred,' Ideal greeted her counterpart curtly.

Fred smiled warmly and spread his arms wide to embrace the visitor. 'Guardian Diode, it's so lovely to see you again after all this time!' he hugged Ideal, who accepted the gesture grudgingly, stepping back as soon as she was released by the doctor. He took a lingering look up and down her upgraded frame which showcased her enthusiasm for playing rugby. 'Nice uniform...' he remarked. 'I don't recall this variation. When did the Guardian Council bring this one in?'

'The Guardian Council has been disbanded,' the visitor said. 'We have one leader now. We are all united under Daemon.'

'Daemon?' Fred questioned, the unfamiliar name catching in his throat. 'What happened to Turbo?'

'He's a fugitive now,' Ideal sneered derisively. 'He's traversing the Net, spreading dissent and trying to undo Daemon's efforts to bring peace to all systems. Anything he was involved in is coming under close scrutiny, including the Future Guardians Laboratory. Do you have an update for me?'

Fred face crumpled and he held Ideal's right hand in both of his as he looked down, gathering his courage. 'Ideal, I'm so sorry, I have some terrible news for you,' he said quietly. 'Please come inside where we can talk.' The doctor ushered the guardian inside his cottage, where his dropped cup from the morning still lay in scattered shards of porcelain on the kitchen floor, cold tea staining the grouting.

'I would prefer it if you used my family name,' Ideal informed Fred coolly. 'But I have the feeling that you are about to tell me that I have no family left.'

The doctor briefly put his hand over his mouth. 'I'm so sorry it has ended this way,' he apologised. 'But you're right, Zenna is gone.'

Ideal closed her eyes, breathed out carefully, then pulled out a dining chair to sit on. Fred followed suit. 'What happened to her?' she asked.

Maintaining careful eye contact, Fred delivered a vague approximation of the truth. 'A virus hunter broke in to the system, so Zenna exhausted herself spawning a Class Five virus so she could defeat him. Sadly, her gamble didn't pay off and she was deleted.' Seeing the fellow guardian's distress, Fred reached out to reassure her, but the bereaved woman sat back in the chair, putting herself out of range.

'I should have reformatted her when I had the chance,' Ideal admitted. 'Instead I kept her as young as I could, for as long as I could. Maybe if I had let her grow up a little more when I was with her, then maybe she might have been able to cope a bit better when she was upgraded to an adult for you.'

'Ifs and ors won't do any good,' Fred said kindly. 'You mustn't blame yourself — we made the best choices we could with the knowledge we had at the time.'

'We?' Ideal questioned. 'You were only ever interested in your pet project and Zenna never had a choice.' The guardian stood up abruptly. 'You failed in your responsibility to keep her safe when you let a virus hunter get to her and you will face the consequences for that.'

Fred remained seated, confident in the ace up his sleeve. 'The truth is, your sister had already broken her end of the deal.'

'What do you mean?' Ideal asked sharply.

Settling back in his chair, the doctor told another half-story. 'The virus had a disagreement with the CommandCom, she lost her temper and attacked him, injuring him badly.' Spreading his hands in resignation, he concluded with another self-serving proclamation. 'I didn't want to turn her over to the guardians because you know as well as I do just how unsympathetic they are.'

'So you failed to keep her under control,' Ideal stated.

'That makes two of us, then.' Fred pointed out archly, dragging up Ideal's past inattention.

Ideal leaned forward and glared at the doctor, deeply unimpressed with his recounting of events. 'You do realise that these are very serious charges you are blithely admitting to?'

Fred's brown eyes widened. 'Charges?' he repeated. 'Are you going to report me to the Guardian Malpractice Committee?'

'No, I'm not...'

The doctor heaved a sigh of relief.

'… That has also been disbanded by Daemon. You will answer to her now.'

Fred swallowed hard and the inside of his mouth dried up. 'Where does that leave me?'

'Under arrest for defaulting on your case statement,' she informed him. 'You do not have to say anything and I highly recommend you don't because you have landed yourself in enough trouble already, but you will have to come back to the Super Computer with me for sentencing.'

'Sentencing?' Fred spluttered. 'There hasn't even been a trial!'

'Things are different now,' Ideal explained coldly. She produced a pair of handcuffs from her belt and fastened then around Fred's wrists, securing his arms behind his back. As soon as they clicked shut, a network of green veins snaked up both of the doctor's arms and settled over his temples and icon. He squirmed slightly, then his face relaxed into an expression of benign acceptance as his porous mind was completely infected by Daemon.

'I've really screwed up, haven't I? He asked, following his fellow guardian out of the house where Ideal immediately saw that the portal to the Super Computer had closed and her phishing boat, the Mary Sue, was missing.

Fred glanced around and saw that Pixie was missing as well. Ideal noted his concern, which piqued her interest.

'Was that little sprite one of Zenna's?'

'The last one,' Fred nodded. 'She can't have gone far though.'

'If she's taken the boat and gone straight to the Super Computer then she will be found,' Ideal said.

'And brought back to me?' the doctor said hopefully.

The black-clad guardian turned to her arrested counterpart with a look of baffled consternation. 'Don't you mean brought back to her parents?' she questioned.

'Her parents left her with me for training in the Future Guardians scheme,' Fred lied. 'But since that has finished, I was going to take personal responsibility for her.'

'How magnanimous of you,' Ideal muttered.

The doctor sighed deeply, then looked directly at Ideal. 'I'm assuming I'm going to be in for the high jump when you take me back to the Super Computer?'

'Fred, the portal has gone.' Ideal pointed out patiently. 'I have to stay here until they open a new one.'

'Oh,' Fred said, slightly surprised. 'In that case, could you take these handcuffs off me? They're starting to chafe.'

'I'm afraid I can't do that,' the black-clad guardian pointed out. 'I've been sent here to judge you and I'm sorry to say that you have been found severely lacking.'

'Judge, jury and executioner?' Fred asked quietly.

Ideal Diode stared levelly at the man responsible for the death of her sister, fixing his with her ice-blue eyes. 'As it is not possible to take you back to the Super Computer right now, I am authorised to hand down any sentence I see fit, including erasure.'

'Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be fair and just in your eyes,' Fred said sarcastically, knowing he had very little left to lose.

'I could delete you on the spot,' Ideal threatened. 'However, I'm not driven by revenge. It sounds like you looked after the sprites involved in your project, so that will help your cause. Can I verify what happened to the binomes?'

'Ah, about those...' Fred began, but was cut off by the sound of Agent C's car revving it's engine.

The guardians turned to see the black vehicle accelerating towards them, piled high with jeering binomes.

'Defend yourself against this!' a tangerine-coloured one binome with a terrible hairdo bawled. 'Get him!'

'We're taking back control!' a zero binome screeched, savagely twisting the steering wheel and accelerating towards the doctor.

Ideal pushed her blue counterpart out of the way, narrowly avoiding a clout on her own body armour. The car soared upwards and wheeled around for a second attack, the binomes shrieking with laughter as they watched their oppressor scramble out of the way, mud and grass stains soiling his white coat. Their mirth was cut short when one of their number was hit by a shot from a hand blaster, wielded by Ideal.

'Get her first!' the tangerine one cried out, pointing his small hand at the female guardian.

Holding the weapon in both hands, Ideal fired repeatedly at the car as it dived towards her, taking out three more binomes in the process.

'Diode!' Fred shouted, keeping his distance. 'You can't just shoot binomes!'

Ideal did not flinch. 'Things have changed!' She shouted back. The guardian kept firing, aiming for the steering and propulsion systems as the car got closer until she hit a conduit, which spewed sparks and sent the remaining binomes into a panic as their vessel lurched towards the ground and began to spin out of control. Fred watched in horror as it hurtled towards him and he set off in a sprint in what he hoped was the right direction, tripping over a rock almost immediately and faceplanting on the turf, unable to save himself with his hands tied behind his back. He spat out a tooth and tried to regain his feet, but there was nowhere left to run.

The damaged undercarriage of Agent C's car was the last thing Fred saw before he was flattened into pixels, the impact destroying the vehicle and its occupants in a hemisphere of orange and scarlet flame.

…

Inside a distant game cube, a breeze rippled through the rust coloured leaves of the trees that surrounded the forest clearing. A thin layer of fallen vegetation lay on top of the trampled earth and the remains of a campfire surrounded by a circle of logs filled the air with the acrid smell of woodsmoke and burned meat. Thick cloud obscured the sun but the sky promised no rain, only an unrelenting mist that afforded a limited view further into the damp woodland.

AndrAIa stood and stared at the distant castle, the wind shifting the folds of her shimmering white dress while a tear ran down her face. 'I can't believe a guardian would just take our daughter like that!' she murmured, pushing strands of hair out of her face. 'We were only just getting to know each other. I can't believe she's not in that castle, waiting for us. We might never see her again.'

Standing a short distance behind, Matrix looked up only briefly, glad that his partner had not tried to make eye contact. Part of him felt that AndrAIa grieving over Pixie would only be an unwelcome distraction in the quest to return to Mainframe. Another part of him knew that to voice that concern would put a rift between them that they might never be able to overcome. Making up his mind, Matrix sighed heavily. 'Yeah.'

'Is that all you can say?' AndrAIa responded incredulously. 'Enzo, I gave birth to that sprite! Pixie's part of us and we've left her behind! Alone! She's the same age we were when we had to leave Mainframe, but we had each other...'

'You can't remember anything, can you?' Matrix cut in abruptly. AndrAIa baulked, unused to being spoken to harshly by her lover. 'Nothing about what the doctor was doing?'

'Nothing,' she admitted. 'What really happened back there?'

'I'm sorry, but you didn't deliver Pixie,' Matrix said as gently as he could. 'Fred tricked us into giving our code to a virus.'

Realisation dawned on the game sprite's face. 'Was it the one who attacked you afterwards?'

Matrix paused, wondering how much detail to impart, then nodded and parted his hair to show the lacerations in his scalp.

'So much for her being benign,' AndrAIa remarked. She looked at the wounds for a few moments, then gently rearranged her partner's hair, before looking away, biting her lip.

'What's the matter?' he asked. 'Something I said? Or something someone else said?'

AndrAIa knew it was useless to try and hide anything from Matrix.

'Just after you went off on your own, Fred said that Pixie reminded him of Zenna,' she said. 'Maybe he took our daughter to get back at you?'

Unwilling to comprehend that deleting a virus could have been the wrong thing to do, Matrix shrugged in reply. 'Maybe.' Realising that he had just been handed the perfect excuse to temporarily purge the little sprite from their minds, he added; 'Maybe he saw that there was something viral in her after all.'

Hearing the child that she had briefly loved then lost being described as "viral" cut through AndrAIa like a knife, but her partner's deep-seated hatred of viruses loomed large on an exhaustingly regular basis and she knew better than to try and persuade him otherwise. 'It must have been really hard for you to accept Pixie.'

'It was,' Matrix said quietly. 'And it was all thrown back in my face.'

Unwilling to abandon her daughter, viral or not, AndrAIa tried one last tactic. 'What if she followed us back to Mainframe?'

Matrix looked away quickly, hiding the half-smile that played on his lips. 'That's exactly what I think she will do. And I'll be waiting for her.'

'Waiting to forgive her?' AndrAIa asked, arms folded and head tilted to one side, as if daring the massive sprite to argue with her.

'If forgiveness is what she wants, I'm sure I can manage it,' he conceded. Keen to end the conversation, Matrix started walking in the direction of the castle. 'Come on Andi, we've got a game to win.'

Out of the sky behind them, a huge scarlet and gold dragon swooped down, belching fire as he descended with his forelegs extended ready to pick up both Matrix and AndrAIa.

'I wish Frisket wouldn't do this,' the renegade sighed as he was carried off in the direction of the castle. 'It's humiliating.'

…

Author's Note: Dear reader, thank you so much for persevering with this story until the end and I hope you have had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. This story turned out much darker than I had initially intended, but that's what happens when you write a fic that borrows heavily from The Handmaid's Tale, adds a dollop of realism and ends with a child being separated from their parents. Needless to say I have learned a lot in the past few months.

Huge thanks to my other half who beta-read this until they were blue in the face! (not literally, mind…) I couldn't have done it without you xx

Now go and do something else. Stay frosty!


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